Gears of War: Last Hope
by Ian Otter
Summary: Fourteen years of warfare against the Locust Swarm has left the world of Sera broken and scarred. For Gears Marcus Fenix and Dom Santiago, there is no hope left, only death. However, the arrival of an ancient and forgotten force might change all that. But only time will tell if these newcomers are angels of salvation... or harbingers of death.
1. Chapter 1

**Summary**

Fourteen years of warfare against the Locust Swarm has left the world of Sera broken and scarred. The Coalition of Governments and humanity as a whole has been pushed to the breaking point. For Gears Marcus Fenix and Dom Santiago, there is no hope left, only death. However, the arrival of an ancient and forgotten force might change all that. However, only time will tell if these newcomers are angels of salvation... or harbingers of death.

**Introduction**

Hello, and welcome to the story!

Today's story is actually a request from a reader of mine (at least, I think they are…) christinedbadia5, who sent me a PM in September of 2019, back when Kat and Emile from _Halo: Reach_ were being added as multiplayer skins to _Gears of War 5_. Essentially what christinedbadia5 was asking was for me to write a crossover story revolving around that idea.

First off, I want to state that I normally don't do request. I find that trying to write to other people's ideas can be rather difficult to me plus I'm normally pretty busy with my own inspired writings. However, for this specific one, the request was vague enough that I felt I could essentially do my own thing, plus I felt I had a rather good idea for a plot that could be worked into a story. The timing also happened to work out as, at the time, I had been getting tired of working on _Battle: Actium_ and was looking to try something else.

Of course, one problem became immediately apparent: the last _Gears of War _game I played was _Judgement,_ back in 2013 and as such, I have no idea what the new series is even _about,_ much less who the new characters are or what they're like (I know it's supposed to take place post-Locust War and revolves around Marcus and Anya Fenix's son? But that's about it.) Rather than go out and buy an Xbox One, the new games, (and a TV) and spent hours trying to learn the new story and catch up, I just decided to change the setting to that of the original trilogy. (I should point out that I actually didn't bother asking christinedbadia5 if this was alright. So, hopefully they won't mind but if they do, um… sorry?)

Because of that, the setting is as follows: on the Gears of War timeline, this story is set between _Gears of War, _and _Gears of War 2,_ **two months** **after** the **Lightmass Offensive**.

Meanwhile on the Halo timeline, this story is set in late **March** of **2551, **a full year before the Battle of Fumirole (as depicted in the Halo short, _Deliver Hope,)_ and the events of _Halo: Reach. _So, contrary to her skin in _Gears _5, Kat still has her arm, nor is Noble Team equipped with their Mark V MJOLNIR (i.e., they do not have energy shields.)

(Other notes: this is a one-shot. To limit the amount of canon characters I would need to depict, neither Baird nor Cole will be appearing. Also, this story might feel like a bit of a UNSC-wank, but I do have a reason in mind of it which will appear at the author's notes at the end of the story. So, make sure to stick around for that.)

Hope you guys enjoy!

**Special thanks goes to my editor, Darkfire7881, for not only editing this chapter, but also for helping me come up with a title too!**

* * *

**Chapter 1**

**Pirnah Badlands, Tyrus, Sera  
Heat, 14 A.E.  
Two months after the Lightmass Offensive**

Sera was a dying world.

That's all Sergeant Marcus Fenix could think about as he sat in the main cabin of the King Raven, staring down at the shattered landscape as it rolled by underneath him. The drive to extract as much Imulsion from the earth at the start of the century had already caused great damage to the world's ecosystem, but then the rapid succession of the Pendulum Wars, the Locust invasion, the Hammer of Dawn Strikes, the subsequent Locust War, and now the Lightmass Offensive, had only served to hammer the point in. With no time to heal between each devastating event, the world had finally been driven to the point of no return. Where once stood grassy fields now stood massive deserts. Where once stood lush and green forest now stood darkened swamps as the trees themselves had turned black and rotted away. Rivers and lakes had dried up, and entire species of animals had been rendered extinct. Not even artificial constructs had been spared as entire cities had been abandoned and left to crumble to dust. Buildings had been shattered, bridges had collapsed, and everywhere one looked, all they saw was the rusting hulks of countless vehicles that had been abandoned in place by their former owners, never to be seen again.

All in all, the devastation was virtually complete, and because of that, there were some days where Marcus couldn't help but wonder why he bothered to continue to fight. After all, what was the point? Even if the Locust were to suddenly and magically disappear tomorrow, ending the war, would there be anything left to rebuild? The purported "Coalition of Governments" barely had enough resources to save themselves, much less the rest of the world. No one did, as to try and save this planet from utter extinction would require the resources and intervention of, well, an entirely _different_ planet. And that was obviously impossible to acquire.

Then there was the fact that the Locust had proven to be remarkably and frustratingly resilient. No matter what the COG did or threw at them, they always seemed to somehow survive and come back, stronger than ever. Take the recent Lightmass Offensive, for example. Marcus and his squad had managed to personally set of the Lightmass Bomb deep within the heart of Locust territory, and that bomb should have resulted in the end of the Locust, or at least degraded them to the point they could no longer conduct offensive operations, allowing the COG to seize the initiative. Yet, in the last two months since then, the Locust showed absolutely no signs of relenting. Which is why Control had sent Marcus and his squad here, to the Pirnah Badlands, where they had detected signs of mass Locust movement, to find out what they were up to.

"_Sergeant!"_ the Raven pilot suddenly yelled, breaking Marcus out of his internal dialogue. _"We're two minutes out!"_

Marcus grunted in acknowledgement before glancing at the man sitting on the bench next to him, his best friend and brother in all but blood, Corporal Dominic "Dom" Santiago. Catching his eye, Marcus mouthed, 'Two minutes.'

Nodding in understanding, Dom lifted his Lancer and began fussing over it, making sure it was ready for immediate use.

In the meantime, Marcus had climbed out of his chair and glanced across the cabin, where the last two members of his squad were seated. For this mission, Marcus had been assigned two rookies: Jason and Robert. Why Control had seen fit to give him two rookies instead of the regular members of his squad, Marcus had no idea, but then again, it wasn't as if he had any say in the matter. He could only hope they didn't end up getting themselves and everyone else killed.

"Listen up Delta Squad!" Marcus loudly yelled to be heard over the drum of the helicopter's rotor blades. "Control spotted a lot of Locust movement here. We're here to figure out what the hell they're up to. This is recon only; we're not looking for a fight, but we better be fucking ready for one. Lancers up; keep them loaded at all times, got it?!"

The two rookies nodded their heads.

"Yessir!" one of them yelled, though whether it was Jason or Robert, Marcus didn't know as they were both wearing the standard COG combat helmet, which covered their faces, and Marcus had yet to learn how to tell their voices apart.

"And quit it with that 'sir' shit," Marcus growled. "We're not that polite out here."

"Yessir!" both rooks automatically replied, and it took Marcus just about everything to avoid rolling his eyes. Fortunately, the pilot chose that moment to interrupt.

"_Sergeant, one minute!"_

"One minute!" Marcus announced to the cabin at large as he wretched open one of the Raven's side doors and got ready to exit the moment they reached the landing zone. He glanced outside in the hopes of spotting any potential ambush waiting for them, but the thing about the Locust was that because they traveled underground, it was virtually impossible to detect them until they were right on top of them.

He barely looked up as Dom joined him in the doorway.

"Damn," Dom commented. "You know, I thought this Lightmass Bomb crap was supposed to have destroyed the Locust. Yet, here they are, still kicking. What does it take to put these bastards down for good?"

"It never ends," Marcus agreed in a low growl.

Dom sighed.

"Just when I thought I'd be able to take some time to go looking for _her,_" Marcus heard him say in a whisper that was barely audible over the sounds of the helicopter.

Marcus immediately knew who he was talking about. Dom's wife, Maria, had been missing for the last twelve years, and Dom had spent every waking moment he wasn't on duty looking for some sign of her. Personally and privately, Marcus had already resigned himself to the idea that Maria was dead. But not Dom. Dom still had hope, however fleeting and while Marcus had already all but given up, if there was one thing he was determined _not _to do, it was to allow his brother to lose his.

"Dom."

Dom looked up.

"This group might not be part of the Locust Army," Marcus pointed out. "Not all of the grub were down in the Hollows when that bomb went off. Maybe… maybe the Locust are all dead, and we're just seeing the stragglers."

He could see a ghost of a smile appearing on Dom's face.

"Marcus Fenix," he gently said with a hint of amusement. "Why don't you leave the optimism to me?"

Marcus snorted. Fair enough.

"_We're touching down!"_ the pilot reported, and Marcus could see the ground rapidly rising up to meet them. _"Three… two… one… touchdown."_

"Delta! Move!" Marcus immediately roared as he hopped out of the Raven and onto the ground. The entire landing zone was washed away with the dust picked up by the helicopter's downwash, but Marcus was nevertheless able to get to cover behind a nearby concrete barrier wall where he set up and waited for the Raven to takeoff again.

"_Control?"_ Marcus heard the pilot announce over the radio._ "This is Two-Two: Gears on the ground, we're pulling out."_

"_Roger that Two-Two, we'll see you back at base."_

The sound of the Raven's engines suddenly grew in pitch and Marcus had to duck his head as dust and other small debris were picked up off the ground and hurtled through the air as the helicopter started taking off once more. The dust quickly began to clear though as the aircraft rapidly gained altitude and just took off in the direction of Jacinto. Where home and safety was.

As soon as the dust had cleared enough for Marcus to see, he quickly looked around to make sure everyone had made it to the ground safety. There was Dom, Robert… and then Jason. Good. Now they could get this mission started.

"Safeties off and spread out!" Marcus barked as the echo of the Raven's rotors slowly faded away into the distance. "Grubs would have heard us coming, so keep your eyes open!"

He waited until his squad had done just that before pointing towards the nearest building. Due to the need to fit the Raven, the LZ had been located out in the middle of a large parking lot. Bordered on all sides by cars and concrete barriers that offered fairly decent cover, it was nevertheless out in the open and Marcus didn't like being out in the open. Any veteran knew that staying out in the open on the battlefield was a death sentence.

Making sure to maintain his spacing with the rest of his squad, Marcus jogged towards the building, while keeping his eyes peeled for any potential snipers. Or worse. Even fourteen years after the invasion began, the Locust had proven themselves to be remarkably unpredictable, somehow producing new weapons and creatures seemingly out of thin air despite COG's best efforts.

As soon as they reached the relative safety of the buildings, Marcus gestured for his squad to assume defensive positions before reaching up to his radio.

"Control? This is Delta-One," Marcus announced. "Radio check."

"_Delta-One? This is Control,"_ Control immediately replied, and Marcus couldn't help but allow a rare smile to grace his face as the sound of Lieutenant Anya Stroud, his on and off lover, flooded his ears, as it always did. Nevertheless, he fought to maintain a stoic look on his face, as the field was no place for such emotions.

"Control, we're on the ground and ready to start our mission," Marcus reported, his voice calm and emotionless as ever. "We'll call you as soon as we find something, over."

"_Copy that Delta,"_ Anya replied, just as smoothly. _"Be advised: we're picking up a lot of activity some three hundred yards north of your current position. We don't have eyes though, so we have no idea what's going on."_

"Then that's where we'll start," Marcus declared.

"_Understood Delta. Let us know what you find. Good luck and be careful out there."_

"Wilco. Delta, out."

Marcus lowered his hand and gestured at his squad to move out. As they did, Dom bounded forward slightly, and Marcus could see a hint of a smirk on his face as he always had whenever he watched Marcus and Anya interact. Still, as a former commando, Dom knew all about being professional out in the field so he didn't comment on it. Instead, he asked:

"Marcus. We have any idea what's throwing the Locust into such a frenzy?"

Marcus shook his head. "No idea. Control mentioned something about… something falling out of the sky a few hours ago, but they don't know what it was."

He could feel Dom throwing a questioning look in his direction. "Something? Out of the sky? What, like a Raven?"

Marcus shrugged.

"Could be," he admitted. "But all our Ravens have been accounted for. The Air Corps' not missing anything. Plus, they're saying this thing came from higher up. Above the service ceiling of a Raven."

Marcus could almost hear the surprised expression that appeared on Dom's face.

"What, like a satellite?" he said, worry clear and evident in his voice. "You don't think… it couldn't be one of our Hammer of Dawn satellites, could it?"

Again, Marcus shrugged but internally, he couldn't help but shiver in fear as that possibility had been plaguing him since he received this mission. The Hammer of Dawn satellites were one of the few aces in the hole the COG had over the Locust. Located out in low orbit in space, they were one of the few weapons the COG had that the Locust were unable to touch, however conversely, due to the loss of all space rocket platforms and launch sites, COG was no longer able to repair or replace any of those satellites in the event they were damaged or destroyed. If they were to have lost one of them…

"That's what we're here to find out," was all Marcus said.

"God…" he heard Dom muttering. "And coverage of the satellites is bad enough of as it is. If we lost one… what could even knock one out of the sky like that?"

Marcus knew a rhetorical question when he heard one, but regardless he couldn't help but mentally sigh as Dom's question. His parents had been the scientists of the family, not him. How was he supposed to know the answer to these questions?

He opened his mouth to respond, but then paused. He thought he felt the ground trembling…

"TAKE COVER!" he roared, dashing for cover by a nearby wall as the road began to shake and crack, and a small depression began forming.

"AMBUSH!" Dom yelled from somewhere behind him. "WE GOT A GRUB HOLE!"

With a loud roar, the top layer of asphalt was suddenly thrown into the air, like a small explosion had just gone off just below the surface, revealing a small hole. Emerging from that hole…

"RAAAAHHHHHHHHH!"

"LOCUST!"

Marcus immediately leaned around the corner and promptly opened up on the first Locust Drone that emerged from the hole. His Lancer came to life in his hands, spitting out fire and death at nearly six hundred rounds per minute. Blood and chucks of flesh were torn off the Drone as Marcus' rounds hammered home and it was only but a few seconds before the Drone was toppling back into the hole, dead before it could even draw its weapon. But that one Drone hadn't been the only one emerging from the ground…

Marcus ducked back down as the remaining Drones began returning fire. A salvo of Hammerburst fire smashed into his wall, sending chunks of brick and masonry dust into the air, some of which ended up in Marcus' eyes, but he stoically bore it as he learned a long time ago there was simply no way to avoid such a thing. Well, not unless he wore a helmet, but there was no way in hell that was going to happen.

"Dom, how many are there!?" Marcus roared across the street in the direction where Dom had taken cover behind a shattered car as he reloaded.

"I counted seven!" Dom yelled back, his Lancer already blazing away. "But there's probably more coming! We got to take out that Grub hole!"

Marcus merely growled in response. Hammerburst fire was already chipping away at his cover and he knew, with the amount of fire he was receiving, it would only be a matter of minutes before it was destroyed entirely and he would be left exposed. He had to move. Now.

"Rah!" Marcus snarled as he stuck his rifle around the corner and began blind firing in the direction where the heaviest of Hammerburst fire was coming from.

Casings began littering the ground as Marcus fired an extended burst, and over all the fighting, he was reward by the sound of a Drone screaming out loud in pain. The incoming fire slackened by a hair, and Marcus saw his chance.

"Dom, I'm moving up! Cover!" Marcus roared.

"I got you!" Dom yelled back.

Marcus waited long enough for Dom to start shooting before spinning around his wall and crouch-dashing towards the next piece of cover directly in front of him, some truck that was half buried under a pile of rubble. He hit the side of the truck with enough force to leave a sizable dent, but without breaking stride, he proceeded to vault over it.

As he slid across the hood, the Drone that was taking cover on the other side rose up to shoot, and Marcus had just enough time to see the Grub's eyes widen in surprise at the sight of him so close, before Marcus' heavy boot caught the Drone right in the mouth, bowling the creature over.

Landing on its back, the Drone scrambled to pick itself off the ground, but Marcus calmly kicked the Grub in the face once more before pulling out his Snub pistol and emptying half a mag into the Drone's head, causing it to practically explode.

No sense in wasting Lancer ammo.

_**BAM!**_

"Gah!"

A grunt of pain slipped through Marcus' lips as a bullet struck him in the shoulder. The bullet fortunately deflected off his armor, but it did cause him to stumble.

Firing his Lancer in the direction the round had come from, Marcus hurriedly backpedaled before hurtling himself back over the truck for cover. As he did, he spotted two Grubs advancing on his position, Hammerbursts blazing away.

Hitting the ground, Marcus shoved himself against the shadow of the truck as bullets pinged off the ground around him. Hastily returning his weapons to their places on his back, Marcus pulled out his Gnasher shotgun and cocked it. Based on the rate those Grubs were firing, they would run out of ammo in just about... now.

The Hammerburst suddenly fell silent and Marcus didn't hesitate. He whirled around the truck and dashed towards the two Drones who were both busy reloading. One of the Grubs happened to look up and spot Marcus approaching, but just before the creature could cry out in alarm, Marcus fired his shotgun from the hip.

_**KABAM! KABAM!**_

Marcus' first shell missed entirely as he was moving too quickly to properly take aim but as he closed the distance, aiming rapidly became less important and Marcus' second shell smashed into the lead Grub's left leg, blowing it off entirely and sending the creature crashing to the ground. The Grub's partner let out an angry cry and whirled around to try smash Marcus' head in with the butt of his rifle, but Marcus deftly dodged the blow, shoved the muzzle of his shotgun against the Grub's chest, and pulled the trigger.

_**KABAM.**_

The Grub exploded, coating Marcus in blood and gore. Ignoring the body as it collapsed to the ground, Marcus whirled on the wounded Grub, who was desperately trying to crawl away, blood gushing from its stub. Jogging over to the Grub, Marcus tossed his shotgun into the air, deftly caught it by the barrel, and proceeded to swing the weapon as hard as he could like it was a golf club. The pistol grip smashed into the Grub's head, caving the creature's head in.

"Marcus, LOOK OUT!"

Marcus had just enough time to turn and see the Wretch launching itself at him, claws extended, when Dom appeared out of nowhere! Throwing himself at the Wretch, he caught the creature in mid-air, knocking it to the ground. Before the Wretch could recover -

_**BBBBrrrrrrrrrrr**_

\- Dom activated his Lancer's chainsaw and drove it straight into the Wretch's chest!

_**rrrrrrNNNNNNNNN!**_

_"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!"_

Both Dom and the Wretch started screaming, Dom out of exertion, the Wretch out of pain, as the diamond-coated teeth of the chainsaw easily cut right through the Wretch's thick skin and into the more vulnerable organs underneath. Blood and chunks of bone was sent _gushing_ into the air as the Wretch was all but cut in half.

"Come on Marcus, we got to find some cover!" Dom yelled, yanking his Lancer out from the quivering mass of flesh on the ground even as bullets began raining down all around them.

Marcus didn't bothering wasting time with words, he just took off, trusting Dom would follow. Running up to a nearby pile of rubble, he and Dom simultaneously vaulted over the top and landed on the other side.

"We got to take out that Grub hole!" Marcus roared even as Dom quickly stood up to return fire.

"I know!" Dom yelled back.

"Where's Jason and Robert!?"

"I dunno!" Dom admitted.

"Fuck!" Marcus snarled as he pulled out his Lancer from his back and readied it. They had better not have lost _both_ their rookies on their first day in the field.

_**beepbeep BOOM!**_

The familiar chirp of a Bolo grenade going off filled Marcus' ears and he stood up in time to see the Grub hole collapsing on itself, cutting off the flow of Locust reinforcements and catching the ones still on the surface by surprise. He didn't need to say a word: both he and Dom promptly opened fire, trying to cut down the remaining Locust before they had a chance to recover from their surprise. With an understanding borne out of years of friendship, they simultaneously concentrated their fire on one Grub after another, using the combined might of both their Lancers to quickly and efficiently kill the last of the hostiles.

As the last of the Locust fell to the ground in pieces, Marcus quickly reloaded and glanced around. He didn't see any movement, friendly or otherwise.

"All clear," he finally announced.

At once, two Gears on the other side of the former Grub hole appeared from behind a small crater in the road: Jason and Robert, looking no worse for wear. One of them raised his Lancer in response, before the two of them climbed out of their hole and jogged across the street to join the rest of the squad.

As they ran, Marcus couldn't help but be mildly impressed. Whether by accident or design, both his rookies had managed to work their way into a flank position that allowed them to close the distance and toss a grenade directly into the enemy's deployment area, all without Marcus having to tell them to do that. In Marcus' experience, not too many rookies knew to do that.

"You two alright?" Marcus growled as they joined him.

"Yessir!" one of them brightly said, sounding slightly stunned. Probably the result of the adrenaline rush.

In the meantime, Dom had been studying the crater the two of them had been taking cover in. At their response, he turned around with an impressed look on his face.

"Damn, you guys managed to work your way pretty close," he complimented. "Good work guys."

Even with their helmets on, Marcus could tell when both his rookies started blushing.

"Aw, it was just luck Corporal," one of them bashfully admitted.

"Yeah," the one supplied. "Plus, we couldn't have gotten that close without _you two_ distracting all them Grubs."

"So, really, you guys deserve all the credit," the other agreed.

"Though I have to say: that was one hell of a throw," the second one said as he turned to his friend.

"Thanks!" the first one said brightly. "But I couldn't have done it without you laying down covering fire like that."

"Why, thank you!"

"No no, thank you –"

"Alright, that's enough! Enough jerking each off already," Marcus growled with mild annoyance. _Northerners;_ always unfailingly polite, to the point it was actually _annoying._

He could hear Dom snorting in amusement behind him but he ignored it as he lifted his hand to his radio once more.

"Control, this is Delta," Marcus announced. "Be advised: we've just been attacked. No casualties to report, over."

Anya's response wasn't quite what Marcus expected.

"_Delta, be advised: we're picking up something big moving to your location,"_ Anya blurted out, her voice tense with a hint of fear in it.

Marcus and Dom exchanged a concerned look and Marcus gestured for his squad to spread out once more, though he wasn't sure what to expect. Something big? All of the Locust war machines were big, especially compared to a regular human. Besides, if it was as big as Anya's voice seemed to imply, shouldn't he have seen… whatever it was by now?

Then he heard it. A low, raspy breathing. A deep growl that Marcus could feel in his bones. And finally, heavy footsteps that caused the very ground to tremble.

"Ah, shit…" Marcus muttered as he hurriedly turned his radio off. "Radios off, now! Dom?"

"On it Marcus," Dom reported as he pulled the Hammer of Dawn laser designator off his back.

"You two," Marcus snapped, turning to his rookies. "Keep quiet, keep low, and do exactly what I tell you, when I tell you, got it!?"

Both Gears nodded their heads, though their body language very clearly showed their fear.

"Sir, what's going on? What's coming?" one of them asked as they hastily moved to turn their radios off.

"We got a Berserker," Marcus whispered.

As if on cue, the heavy thumping of footsteps filled the air and Marcus slowly turned around to see, emerging from around the corner at the end of the block…

The massive twelve foot tall monster stomped her way down the center of the street. Each one of her footsteps caused dust to fall from the ceiling and land onto Marcus' do-rag, though he dare not react least he accidently attract Berserker's attention. The Berserker was alone, which made sense as Berserkers were known to be so temperamental to the point they were willing to attack their own side at the slightest provocation, but unfortunately that didn't really help Marcus as that meant he didn't have any way of distracting the beast.

The Berserker made her way to the center of the intersection before abruptly stopping, her head tilted skyward, sniffing the air. Marcus could only hope she wasn't downwind of their scent because if so, they were screwed.

"Nobody moved," Marcus whispered out the side of his mouth, his eyes glued on the Berserker, trying to figure out what she was about to do next. "She can't see us, but she sure as hell might be able to hear us. Or _smell _us."

"Sarge…" one of his rookies whispered. "What do we _do…?"_

Marcus didn't bother replying. Instead, all he did was make a quick cutting motion with his free hand as he watched the Berserker turn her head left to right, as if she was looking for something. She must have found something though, as she abruptly let out a shriek, one that cause the hairs on the back of Marcus' neck to stand up, before suddenly dashing off.

Almost immediately, he could hear one of the rookies behind him letting out a sigh, but before he could speak, Marcus cut him off by violently lifted his hand and extending a single finger. For about a full minute, all four of them stood there, still as a statue.

Finally, Marcus decided it wasn't a trick and the Berserker wasn't coming back. Lowering his arm, he allowed himself to let out a mute sigh of relief.

"Oh, thank the Chairman," one of his rookies said, relief evident in his voice.

Marcus couldn't help but snort.

"Chairman ain't got nothing to do with this," he retorted with a slight sneer. "Just be glad we didn't have to fight that thing. Even as well-equipped as we are, those bitches aren't easy to kill."

He glanced in Dom's direction, or more specifically the laser designator Dom was carrying, only to notice the stricken look on his face. "What."

"Marcus," Dom slowly began. "She took off in the direction _we're_ supposed to be going."

With a start, Marcus looked around and sure enough, the Berserker had taken off due north, on the exact same heading Control had told them where the heaviest amount of Locust activity was. "God dammit."

"Great. Just great," one of the rookies snapped. "What do we do now?"

"Keep calm," Marcus demanded as he reactivated his radio. "Maybe we can get some air –"

Without warning, the head of one of his rookies abruptly exploded!

_**BOOM!**_

The retort of the Longshot sniper rifle echoed down the street as the body of the non-headless rookie sagged to the ground, but Marcus was no longer paying attention as he whirled around and instantly spotted the Sniper Drone crouch behind a small parapet wall on top of a building just down the street, in the midst of reloading.

"SNIPER!" Marcus roared as he lifted his Lancer and opened fire. He was quickly joined by gunfire from both Dom and his remaining rookie.

Bullets smashed into the face of the Drone's cover, causing the Grub to inadvertently drop its rifle as it hurriedly ducked into cover. The concrete wall was able to stand up to the initial barrage, but it was clear it wouldn't remain that way for long as even under less than a second's worth of sustained fire, Marcus could already see cracks forming.

"Keep firing!" Marcus demanded.

"AHHHH!" his remaining rookie screamed in response.

Chunks of concrete were visibly beginning to fall off as the three Lancers steadily began working their way through the concrete. It was clear to all parties involved that the wall wouldn't last long, and that if the Drone hoped to survive, than it would need to move, but pinned down as it was, there was nothing the Grub could do. Marcus' rifle abruptly clicked empty, and he hurriedly moved to reload, and as a result, he almost missed it when the Grub decided to throw all caution to the wind and make a run for it, only to take a full rifle burst to the head.

"TAKE THAT YOU SONUVABITCH!" Marcus' remaining rookie screamed at the top of his lungs, no longer the polite northerner he had been only a few moments ago. "COME ON! I GOT SUMTHING FOR ALL YA!"

The rookie continued to roar throw insults down the street, but Marcus had no time for that.

"Dom! Get the body's tags, rifle, and ammo!" Marcus immediately ordered. "Kid, enough with the shit-talk, let's go! We got to get off the street before – "

"_**IIIIEEEEEEE!"**_

The chilling shriek of a Berserker filled the air moments before a nearby concrete wall exploded as the same Berserker from before burst out onto the street. The Berserker immediately turned in the direction Delta Squad was standing, let out another deafening shriek, one that, despite everything he'd seen and experienced in the last few decades, almost caused Marcus to shit his pants, and charged.

"**RUNNN!" **Marcus screamed, even as he lifted his Lancer and futilely emptied the magazine into the Berserker's chest. He held his ground even as the Berserker began bearing down on him, at least long enough until Dom and the rookie were able to jump clear, before diving out of the way, just barely clearing the road in time to avoid getting pancaked.

"Dom! We need the Hammer! Rook, get on the other side of the road! We need to keep this thing distract so Dom can take her out!" Marcus roared even as he dove into a barrel roll to avoid getting hit.

"Oh God! We're all going to die!" he heard the Rook cry out, but Marcus was too busy trying to dodge to comment.

"Rook, SHOOT IT!" Marcus desperately yelled as he just barely dodged a blow from the Berserker. As Marcus had been the first one to shoot her, he had been the one she decided to focus on.

Without warning, the Berserker abruptly lashed out and while Marcus was able to dodge the worst of it, the blow still sent him staggering. As the Berserker reached out to grab him with one massive, scaly arm, she was abruptly struck in the back by gunfire. Immediately losing sight of her prize, the Berserker turned to charge after her tormenter, the Rook, leaving Marcus to scramble to his feet and relocate.

"_Delta, this is Control! What is your situation!?"_

Anya's frighten voiced suddenly filled Marcus' ears.

"Control, we have a Berserker!" Marcus managed to spit out as he hurriedly reloaded. "I've already lost one man, I need air support!"

"_Um, okay! Re-routing the nearest Raven, but its twenty minutes away!"_

"Then we'll use the Hammer instead!" Marcus snarled.

"_Okay, but be advised: satellite coverage is only available for three more minutes!"_

"Dom, you get that!" Marcus immediately roared.

"Already on it Marcus!" Dom yelled back and sure enough, Marcus could see multiple orange-colored laser beams coming together to form beam right over the Berserker's head. At once, a blinding orange light struck the Berserker, causing multiple, lava-like seams to form all over the creature's body.

"Pour it on her rook!" Marcus demanded, even as he leveled his Lancer and opened fire, aiming for the lava-like seams.

Unlike before where his rounds simply bounced off the Berserker's thickly armored skin, this time Marcus could see blood squirting out from where his bullets were working their way through the open sections of the Berserker's body. Unfortunately, he wasn't given much time to do damage as, moments later, the Berserker's body rapidly cooled, allowing the Berserker to regain her natural resistant to gunfire.

"Dom, hit her again!"

"I'm trying! But she's in the shadows right now! Hammer can't get a lock!" Dom desperately yelled back.

Marcus growled as he lifted his empty Lancer.

"Shit!" he snapped, pulling out his Snub pistol and emptying the magazine.

"_**IIIIEEEEEEE!"**_

The Berserker screamed and charged straight at Marcus, who hastily dropped his pistol and rolled out of the way as the Berserker dashed right past him, and into the open where Dom could hit her.

"Firing!" Dom warned before, once again, orange laser began forming right over the monster's head.

_**BOOOSSSSHHHHH**_

The Berserker let out a scream of pain as once again her body was awashed with nasty looking burns. Not willing to waste precious time reloading, Marcus whipped out his Gnasher and began unloading.

_**KABAM! KABAM! KABAM! KABAM! KABAM! KABAM! CLANG!**_

Marcus' last shell abruptly bounced off the Berserker's body as her body cooled down once more, though this time Marcus could see some obvious wounds on her body, and it was clear to him that it would only take one or two more Hammer blast to finish her off.

"_Marcus, you need to hurry! You're running out of time! You've got less than a minute's worth of satellite coverage left!"_

"We're working on it!" Marcus yelled back, hurriedly working on reloading his weapons. ""KID! I'M OUT OF AMMO! GET HER ATTENTION!"

"GOT IT!"

The rook began firing and Marcus did his best to quickly reload. The heavy thumping of the Berserker caught his attention though, and he looked up to see the Berserker rapidly bearing down on the kid's position. "KID! LOOK OUT!"

"I GOT THIS SARGE!" the rook yelled back. He defiantly held his ground until the last possible second, and started to dive to the side to roll out of the way when, unexpectedly, he went crashing into the ground.

"AH, FUCK!" Marcus heard him yell out and even from this distance, Marcus could see the piece of rebar sticking out from the ground that had somehow gotten entangled in one of the straps to the kid's shin guard, causing him to trip.

"KID, GET OUT!" Marcus yelled as he opened fire, desperately trying to draw the Berserker's attention back onto himself, but it was too late. Before the rookie could so much as think about getting out of the way, the Berserker was all over him.

"OH GOD! AHHHHHH – gurk!"

The kid's screams were abruptly cut off as the Berserker grabbed ahold of him and literally tore him in half.

"KID, NO!" Marcus roared. "DOM, DROP THE HAMMER ON THIS BITCH!"

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Dom lifting the designator and pulling the trigger when –

_beep beep beep_

\- the designator let out a negative sounding beep.

"Oh, shit!" Dom yelled. At the same time in Marcus' other ear –

"_That's it! You're out of time! Satellite has moved out of position! Delta, do you copy!?"_

"You got to be kidding me," Marcus growled as the Berserker, finally done tearing the rookie's body to shreds, turned in their direction.

"Marcus, what are we doing?" Dom demanded to know even as the Berserker started charging in their direction. "Marcus? Marcus!"

Marcus desperately tried to think of something he could do, but nothing came to mind. That satellite was the only thing that could have done enough damage to the Berserker to stop it. Without it, they were screwed.

He lowered his rifle and stood there as the Berserker started to get closer and closer to him. So. This was how it was going to end. He always knew it was going to happen at some point, but he'd been hoping he could have put it off just a bit longer. He'd been hoping to have just a little bit more time.

As the shadow of the Berserker started to fall over him, Marcus slowly closed his eyes as he waited for death's cold embrace. As he did, he could only think of one thing to say –

'Sorry Anya.'

_**Bewwww BOOOOSSSSSSHHHHH!**_

Without warning, there was a brilliant red flash, one so bright, Marcus was able to see it through his eyelids. His eyes snapped open in time to see the Berserker staggering backwards, a massive, circular burn in the center of her chest.

The Berserker let out a loud shriek of pain even as a red blinking laser began appearing on her forehead. Before she could do anything else though –

_**Bewwww BOOOOSSSSSSHHHHH!**_

Another brilliant red laser cut through the air, spearing the Berserker right through the head. The Berserker's head stayed intact for all of three seconds, before the energy from the beam proved to be too much and the Berserker's head simply exploded. As the red laser dissipated, the Berserker's body just stood there for a few moments, swaying in the wind, before toppling over backwards, causing the ground to shake as it hit the ground.

For a few moments, Marcus just stood there, hardly daring to move, much less breath. He was… alive? How!?

Stiffly, Marcus slowly turned around to see how Dom had managed to accomplish what he had just done, only to see Dom wasn't even looking in his direction. Instead, Dom had turned around and was staring in the direction the Berserker had originally come from and even though he couldn't see his face, Marcus had known Dom long enough to know, every bit of Dom's body language was screaming out surprise and shock.

Wondering what the hell Dom was staring at, Marcus decided to turn around fully.

There, walking down the street towards them, were two figures. At first, Marcus thought they were nothing more than a couple of Gears from another squad. But as they got closer, Marcus realized how wrong he was. For starters, they were tall. Both of them were almost seven feet tall in height and even though they weren't here, Marcus could tell these newcomers were a good head taller than both Tai and Cole, who were both the tallest people Marcus knew. And, these newcomers were just as bulky as the two men would have been.

Then there was the armor these two figures were wearing. Marcus had worked with a variety of armor configurations over the years, but he had never seen anything like the set they were wearing. First off was the color: neither of them were colored in the standard light blue or dark gray armor of COG Gears, or even the jet black armor of the Onyx Guard. Instead, one of the figures were clad in some sort of sky blue colored armor, while the other had reddish tones instead. They were also both wearing fully encased helmets, though the red one, for some reason, had what appeared to be the face of a human skull imprinted on his visor. As the figure got closer, Marcus could tell the image wasn't standard, as it was clear it had been etched into the plating by some sort of shape blade.

Finally, there was their weapons. The blue figure was carrying some sort of rifle-looking weapon, only it looked a bit odd, with what appeared to be the magazine being located behind the trigger and pistol grip, instead of in front like a Lancer, giving the weapon a rather short and stubby look to it. The red figure, on the other hand, was carrying what almost appeared to be some sort of Longspear rocket launcher, only, when Marcus glanced at the barrel, instead of a warhead sticking out, he could only see a small red glow and he quickly realized that this weapon had been the one that fired the laser that had ultimately killed the Berserker.

The two figures came walking down the street, before stopping less than fifteen feet away from Marcus and Dom. For several moments, the two parties just stood there, sizing each other up as Marcus tried to figure out what to do. These newcomers were definitely not part of the COG, he was sure. Nor did he think they were part of the Stranded, as he knew the Stranded had a hard enough time trying to find enough food to eat, much less be able to design and build armor and weapons this advance. It was possible they belonged to the UIR, but no one had heard from the former Union of Independent Republics since the Hammer of Dawn Strikes thirteen years ago. And if any of the UIR citizens had survived, it didn't make much sense to Marcus for them to make their sudden reappearance in the Pirnah Badlands, of all places. Nor did he think they would have been interested in saving the lives of two soldiers belonging to the government that had authorized the strikes that had destroyed their world.

A thought suddenly occurred to Marcus. Could _these _people have been the reason why the Locust were working themselves into such a frenzy?

Before Marcus could ponder on the question any further, the figure in red suddenly moved. Lifting his hand, the figure pointed in the direction of the still-smoking Berserker's body, and, much to Marcus' surprise and shock, _spoke in near flawless Tyran_:

"_That was a bad guy, right?"_

* * *

Originally, I had intended for this to simply one large chapter, however during the course of writing it, it began rather long so I've decided to break it up into separate chapters.

Update: 1/24/2020: Minor corrections as per an anonymous review.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note:

Well. This story sort of… exploded overnight. Not going to lie, I had high hopes this story would be well received but… wow. The interest has definitely far exceeded my expectations. Thank you all for that.

At this point, I would normally write out an individual response to everyone that left a review last chapter, but unfortunately there's a bit too many of them for me to do just that (which is honestly something I never thought I'd have to say.) So I'll just say instead: thank you all for the reviews, favs, and follows everyone left on the first chapter! I greatly appreciate it.

As always, special thanks goes to my editor, **Darkfire7881.**

* * *

**Chapter 2**

**High Orbit, Unknown Planet  
March 2, 2551 (Standard UNSC Calendar)  
Three Hours Earlier**

Special Warfare Operator and Spartan, Warrant Officer Emile-A239, was a simple man. He had his likes and he had his dislikes. His likes included attacking his enemies head on, feeling their skulls get crushed beneath his feet, seeing their bodies sprawled out in a puddle of their own blood on the ground in front of him and… well...

…actually, that was about it now that he thought of it.

His dislikes, on the other hand, were a bit more complicated. For starters, he absolutely hated flying. He was an infantryman, a Spartan, not some damn flyboy, and because of that, every time he entered an aircraft or spacecraft, he was no longer in control. His fate rested in the hands of someone else, and Emile hated that feeling. Especially in a spacecraft where, often times, if they came under attack, there was very little he could do in terms of actually fighting back. Not like when he was on the ground.

Another thing he hated was reconnaissance missions. Recon missions were all about "stealth" and "avoiding engagement with the enemy" as for those missions, observation and surveillance was the name of the game, not head-on assaults, all of which for Emilie was: _yawn._ Emile very much preferred killing the Covies, as opposed to just lying there in wait, watching the damn Hinge-heads and Baby Kongs sipping on their tea or… whatever it was the Covies did whenever they weren't actively plotting to exterminate the rest of humanity. Twirling their moustaches and cackling evilly maybe?

But if there was one thing Emile _absolutely_ hated, it was deep space long range reconnaissance missions, as it combined _everything_ he hated in this war. So how it was it he found himself on one _now!?_

Shit.

What was he even doing here? This was a mission for Carter. Or Thom. Hell, Jun was the sniper. He knew all about crawling around on the ground like a snake. Why wasn't he here?

Of course, if Emile was being complete honest with himself, he knew _exactly_ why he was here: Operation: ORANGE SNOW. It was a counter insurgency mission that Emile had participated six months ago on the colony of Tribute. A bunch of lunatics and terrorist from the local Insurrection had seized control of a school just outside the city of Irbid, taking a little over a thousand civilians hostage, of which, just under two thirds were children.

Given the delicacy of the situation, High Command had made the decision to send in a small team of Spartan operators to assist in the rescue mission, of which Emile was one of them. For Spartans, the mission should have been simple. Intelligence had stated there were only thirty-three terrorist, so all it should have taken was for the team to infiltrate the school, eliminate all the terrorist, and disappear before anyone even knew they were on the planet.

But it hadn't. Because, surprise, surprise, the intelligence had been wrong, and there were actually thirty-_**four**_ terrorist.

Not that one terrorist could ever hope to take down a single Spartan, much less four of them, but when that uncounted thug had appeared out of nowhere, catching Emile by surprise, he had done what came naturally to him: he'd shot the fucker in the face.

…of course, that was _before_ he had noticed the dead man's switch the terrorist had been holding, which was tied directly to the improvised bombs that had been planted in the room where most of the hostages were being kept.

Yeah…

End result? Over three hundred people were killed, nearly eight hundred more were severely wounded, and the UNSC was left with one_ hell_ of a major scandal. To say that Emile's commanding officer, Colonel Urban Holland was pissed, was a bit of understatement. So, the moment the Office of Naval Intelligence had picked up on the possibility that the Covenant had _maybe_ set up a refueling and resupply facility in an unexplored system nearly three dozen lightyears away from the Vesuvius System, of which the crucial UNSC colony of Fumirole was located, Holland had immediately volunteered Emile and Noble Team's second in command, Lieutenant Kat-B320, to accompany a small team of ONI specialist on a long range recon mission to determine whether said facility actually existed.

Which is why Emile found himself here, inside this tiny-ass ship, on the ass end of the universe –

\- crashing. Because, as it turned out, the Covenant really _were_ here_._

"MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY: this is ONI subprowler UNSC _Für Elise_! We are under attack and we're going down! Any UNSC call signs, please respond!"

"Save your breath Commander Luzader!" Kat snapped as she fought to regain control of the spacecraft. "There's no out here but us!"

"And the Covenant apparently!" Emile pointed out. He forcefully jerked his M870 "Rampart" turret around as three Banshees whipped by and sent a burst of 50mm armor-piercing sabots shells in their direction. Given the speed and distance the Banshees were traveling at, there was no way those shells should have connected, but somehow, they did, and Emile was rewarded with the sight of one of the Banshees dissolving into a blue fireball that briefly illuminated the dark void of space. "HAHA! Target eliminated! Who's next!?"

Without warning, there was an explosion from somewhere in the stern of the ship, causing the entire vessel to shake.

"Shit! Ma'am! Engine three is out!" the helmsman sitting next to Kat reported.

"Re-divert all fuel and boost power to engine four by thirty percent to compensate for the drift!" Kat demanded.

"Yes, ma'am!" the helmsman frantically said, sweat pouring down her face.

"Sir! The Bandits are coming around!" the technician who was helping feeding the gun yelled, drawing Emile's attention back to his task at hand.

"I see 'em!" Emile as he wrenched the turret around. "Come on! I got something for all of ya!"

He opened fire, sending shells streaking downrange but at the distance the Banshees were flying at, none of them connected and the Covies pilots quickly retaliated.

The ship shook again as something else exploded, and Emile could hear a loud beeping noise coming from the main display. It wasn't a good sound.

"Damn. Main engines are out, switching over to maneuvering thrusters. Noble Four! You need to keep those Banshees off us!" Kat snapped over her shoulder.

"Hey! I already eliminated most of the bastards attacking us!" Emile protested. "But this would be a lot easier if we had kept our assigned A.I. like I said we should have, you know!?"

"We couldn't have! You know what the Cole Protocol says: the moment we got compromised, we had to secure all sensitive material, which included our A.I.!"

"Couldn't we have waited until _after _we crashed before deleting her?"

"You assume we're going to get that far…?"

_**BOOM!**_

Emile jerked as something exploded through the bulkhead wall right next to him, spraying the cockpit with spall. Emile's armor was able to absorb most of it, prevent him from getting injured, but the tech standing right next to him had no such protection, and took a chunk straight to the face. He dropped to the deck like a puppet whose strings had been severed, and didn't get back up.

"MAN DOWN!" another member of the crew standing nearby screamed, but Emile was more concerned about the _breach_ in the wall.

"Forget about him! He's dead! We got a hull breach!" Emile snapped.

"Fields! Langley! Secure the hull breach!" their mission commander and captain of the vessel, Commander Luzader, snapped.

"Aye, sir!"

Out of the corner of his eye, Emile could see the two remaining ONI technicians grabbing a couple of gas cylinders and began spraying some sort of foam onto the hole in the bulkhead. Upon contact, the foam immediately began to harden, sealing the breach. It wasn't a permanent fix, but for the moment it would have to do.

More movement outside caught his attention and Emile snapped back to his turret and reflexively pulled the trigger, and just barely managed to avoid pumping his fist as one of the last remaining Banshees exploded into a ball of fire.

"Ha! You're dead! Take a seat!" he nevertheless crowed.

Unfortunately, the loss of his wingman didn't seem to deter the last Banshee as the Covenant pilot banked hard and quickly turned around, plasma cannons blazing.

"Lieutenant! The _Elise_ can't stand too many more hits like that!" Luzader yelled as the ship shook once more.

"I agree Commander!" Kat yelled back.

"Do you have a plan?"

"Sensors indicate that planet has a breathable atmosphere!" Kat reported, pointing at the ship's main viewing port where, for the last few minutes, a single terrestrial planet had been steadily filling the screen. "If we can get down onto the surface, we might be able to enact some repairs! But we can't let the Covenant see us, otherwise they'll just be able to destroy us from orbit! Four, you need to take out that last Banshee before we land!"

"I'm on it!" Emile promised as he spun his turret around, trying to locate the last Banshee. The problem was, while his Rampart turret was designed with a manual overwrite in the event the ship's A.I. was knocked out for whatever reason, the electrical motor had been damaged by the Banshees in their initial salvo. While it wasn't something a Spartan couldn't handle, the slight delay in reaction meant trying to take down a single Banshee was a lot more difficult than it should have been.

"_WARNING: INCOMING MISSILE."_

Beneath his visor, Emile's eyes widened ever so slightly as he spotted the fuel rod cannon heading in their direction. Taking a moment to run some quick calculations, Emile pivoted his turret around and fired, blowing the missile out of the void before swiftly rotating around to try and target the Banshee. However the moment the pilot had fired the missile, the Banshee had thrown itself into a loop, and was now approaching the _Elise _from below, where Emile's turret didn't have a shot.

"Lieutenant, Bandit approaching from the keel! Give me a rotation, ninety degrees port!" Emile yelled out.

Without saying a word, Kat threw the ship into an aileron roll, and Emile felt his stomach churn as he felt himself getting flipped upside down. Emile ignored the sensation as he focused on trying to obtain a lock on the Covenant. The instant Emile had part of the Banshee in his sights, he fired a quick burst but unfortunately, while the _Elise _had been rolling, so too had the Banshee and once again, Emile's burst of autocannon fire completely missed. In retaliation, the Banshee returned fire, and the entire ship shook as it was raked with even more plasma fire.

"Gah!" Emile snarled under his breath. "Why is it so much easier to take out Banshees when they're in groups versus when they're alone?" More loudly, he yelled, "Two! Keep on rotating like that! I almost got him!"

The _Elise _continued to roll, and Emile's fingers hovered over the triggers as he patiently waited for the Banshee to come within his gunsights, but the Covie pilot could clearly see what they were doing as the Banshee was taking all sorts of evasive maneuvers, making it hard for Emile to lock on. Fortunately, Kat started inducing a more randomized pattern to her flying, try to keep the Banshee guessing as to what they were about to do next and increasing the chances of the Covenant making a mistake.

There!

Emile's crosshairs flashed red as the Banshee passed through his sights for barely half a second, but it was enough time for Emile to acquire a firing solution and pull the trigger. The twin barrels on his turret recoiled as he sent a burst downrange, and Emile could see chunks of armored plating fly off as the shells skimmed along the top of the Banshee's starboard wing. The Banshee immediately broke off but it was already too late as Emile could see more and more chunks of armor flying off. Then, without warning, the Banshee simply exploded.

"Ha! Tango down!" Emile cheered.

"Good, because we're entering the planet's exosphere!" Kat called out. "Strap yourself in Four: this is going to get rough!"

Emile nodded, and started to pull away from the turret. But before he did, something outside caught his eye.

"What the… Commander! Noble Two! Did you see that?" Emile frantically asked.

"See what?" Luzader distracted replied.

"We just passed an artificial satellite sitting in high orbit around the planet!" Emile yelled as he turned his turret to stare at the object in question.

Sure enough, the object was most definitely an artificial construct. Cylindrical in shape, the object was huge, appearing to be almost as big and long as the _Elise _itself. It was constructed out of what appeared to aluminum and steel, and covered in lightly-colored composite thermal protective tiles. It was also equipped with two massive solar panels on either side of the main cylinder body, with each panel being almost three times as long as the body itself was. All in all, the satellite wouldn't have looked out of place in orbit around, say, Reach, or even Earth aside from one noticeable difference: the satellite appeared to be pointed down, towards the surface of the planet, as opposed to outer space.

"Yeah, I saw it!" Kat confirmed. "We're also picking up low encrypted radio chatter coming from all across the planet's surface; this planet is clearly inhabited!"

"Covenant?"

"Negative Four; none of the encryptions match what we have on record as the Covenant using. Though the computer istelling me some of them are very similar to stuff _the UNSC _has used in the past…"

"Can we please save speculations as to who's occupying this planet until _after_ we've landed?" Luzader snapped. "We're approaching the mesosphere! Warrant Officer: now would be a really good time to consider finding a seat!"

Emile hurriedly abandoned his position at the turret as an orange glow began to surround the ship, and tossed himself into a nearby crash seat. He didn't bother with the restraints though, as they weren't rated to withstand the force of a Spartan-III equipped with a full set of Mark IV MJOLNIR armor being thrusted against it at high speeds. Instead, he dug his heels into the metal deck while at the same time, braced himself by grabbing the handholds mounted on the bulkhead walls.

"We're coming in too fast," Kat was saying in the meantime. "Helmsman, give me nose up, forty degrees!"

"Copy, forty degrees!"

The _Elise _abruptly shuddered, and Emile braced himself as he felt the ship start to angle upwards so it was "belly flopping" down through the planet's surface, creating a larger amount of drag that would hopefully begin to slow the ship's descent.

"Commander! We need an LZ!" Kat called out, sounding distracted.

"Roger! Working on that now!"

Glancing at Luzader, Emile could see him frantically paging through a series of images on his main display. "Okay… got one! Open field, about a hundred meters just north of that urban center! Sending location to your screen!"

A soft chime sounded from Kat's screen.

"Locked on target," Kat reported. "Helmsman, how's our speed?"

"We're still clocking in at about thirty seven hundred meters per second Lieutenant!"

"A bit fast, but it'll have to do. On my mark, lower our angle of descent by fifteen degrees. And… MARK!"

The entire ship shook once more but even then Emile could slowly feel the _Elise_ slowly leveling out.

"Open cockpit window blast shutters," Kat briskly commanded. "Give me visual!"

The helmsman hit a button and immediately the metal shutters that had been covering the windows, protecting the cockpit from harm, slid open. Sunlight began filtering through the multi-paned silicate glass, revealing the orange halo that had been surrounding the hull of the ship was gone. In the distance, Emile could see the ground sprawled out below them, rapidly growing in size as the _Elise_ continued her descent.

"Highlight LZ!"

A red outline of a small field in the far distance appeared on the cockpit window. Just next to the field, there was a small town or large village of sorts; if Emile had to guess, he'd say it was probably more like the suburbs of a much larger city, which implied an advance civilization. More importantly though, even from this far up, Emile could see how devastated the city looked; not only that, at this point in the war, Emile had seen enough cities and towns to know an urban center that had undergone orbital bombardment when he saw one, and the settlement he saw right now in the distance fit all the classic signs. That was not good. Had the Covenant already been here before? Were they already on the ground now?

Emile was starting to wish he hadn't left his shotgun in the cargo bay.

"Give me an altitude and speed check."

"Altitude is good, ma'am; we're about sixteen thousand meters off the ground! But we're still coming in too fast! Current speed… _thirteen hundred meters per second!_"

"All engines reverse, full!"

The entire ship rattled as the helmsman reached out and hit a series of buttons, and at once an alarm began sounding though what it meant, Emile had no idea. He watched as Kat reach up and flick a couple of switches, which apparently failed to do what she wanted them to as she proceeded to give the panel a good hard smack with her fist.

"Not good," was all she said. "Give me nose down, fifteen degrees."

"Fifteen degrees, copy! But we're still coming in too fast!"

"I know," Kat calmly replied.

"At those speeds, ma'am, our rate of descent will be too much for us to land safely!"

"I _know,"_ Kat replied. "But this ship is moments away from falling apart; we need to get on the ground, _now_."

Without warning, there was a loud _CRASH _and Emile looked up just in time to see a panel getting ripped off the nose of the ship. Before anyone could react, the panel slammed into the window shield with enough force to actually crack the outer layer. At once, all sorts of alarms began sounding inside the cockpit.

"Shit! I just lost my instrument panel!" the helmsman yelled. "I got no eyes: I'm completely blind here!"

"Maintain course!"

"But we don't know where the hell we're going, ma'am!"

"I'm still getting instrument readings in my HUD!" Kat reported. "We'll just have to fly by hand!"

"Copy that, ma'am!"

Emile glanced at the helmsman and the look of barely suppressed panic on her face, then glanced at the back of Kat's head. Reaching up to his own helmet, he quietly activated his direct line to Kat.

"Kat: we're going to make it, right?" he mutely asked her.

"_Ask me that in five minute,"_ was all Kat said in response, which didn't exactly fill Emile with confidence. Without saying another word, Emile began prepping his armor in the event he needed to lock it in a hurry.

"Six thousand meters," Kat was saying in the meantime. "We're still coming in too fast; extend air brakes."

"Copy, extending air brakes!"

The ship shuddered and shook and Emile could hear Kat grimacing.

"Twenty-five hundred meters," Kat declared after a few seconds. "We're still coming in too hot! Extend all flaps!"

"Extending all flaps, copy!"

The _Elise _began groaning and Emile glanced up. Perhaps it was his imagination, but were there cracks beginning to form in the ceiling?

"We're still going too fast ma'am!" the helmsman frantically reported. "We're going to overshoot our landing zone!"

"Can't do anything about that now," Kat replied through gritted teeth. "Thousand meters! Standby to execute preflare on my mark… MARK!"

Without warning, the _Elise _began to tilt upward to the point where she was no longer pointing straight at the ground. At this point, Emile estimated they were probably a little over six hundred meters off the ground though without being able to see any landmarks or least something to compare against, he couldn't even begin to guess how fast they were moving.

"Landing gear!" Kat spat out. "Here we go: all crew, brace for impact!"

Emile automatically tensed as the ground came rushing up straight towards them.

_CRASH!_

Deep groves were driven into both the bulkhead walls and the metal deck as Emile attempted to stop himself from pitching forward and crashing into the crewmember sitting right in front of him as the _Elise_ hit the ground at high speeds. Emile could hear the ship's landing gear snapping off before a loud scraping noise began to fill the area as the _Elise_ slid across the ground. An entire wave of dirt, rock, and other similar debris washed over the bow of the _Elise_ and plowed into the cockpit window, temporarily creating a shield and briefly plunging the cockpit into darkness. Someone was screaming out loud in fear, though whether it was Luzader, the helmsman, or one of the two remaining crewmembers, Emile couldn't tell. For the next few seconds, both Spartans and humans were completely helpless against the laws of physics.

And then suddenly, just like that, it was all over.

Ignoring the shards of metal that had embedded themselves into his boots and gauntlets, Emile, with a sense of calmness that only a Spartan could hope to achieve after having just crashed landed on a foreign planet, released his grip on the walls and stood up, ignoring the startled looks the crew gave him.

"I'm going for my weapons," he reported. "Lieutenant, want me on rear security?"

"We're on a planet full of unknown but potentially hostile aliens. Yes, rear security," Kat confirmed as the rest of the crew began to stir.

"Crew, with me! Damage assessment! Let's go!" Emile heard Luzader call out as he made his way out of the cockpit and down towards the cargo bay.

As was typical of a _Black Cat-_class subprowler, the _Elise_ came equipped with a full sized cargo bay that was large enough to fit an entire platoon of fully equipped and armored Spartan-IIIs. For this mission however, much of the space in the cargo bay was taken up by the various pieces of surveillance and reconnaissance equipment Emile and the rest of the crew were expected to use in their search for the Covenant's shipyards. What little room that did remain was reserved for the weapons' locker, which aside from containing a variety of small arms and crew-served weapons, also included a vast amount of explosives as it had been expected that in the event the presence of said Covenant shipyard was confirmed, Kat and Emile would have been sent in to, at the very least, sabotage the entire facility.

Obviously that wasn't going to happen now, but that didn't mean Emile wouldn't be able to find a use for them later. For now though, his main concern was arming himself in the event they were attacked.

Kicking aside a large sheet of metal that had fallen off the ceiling and was blocking the corridor, Emile made his way into the cargo bay. Inside, it was a mess. All sorts of equipment had broken free of their restraints, the result of the turbulence from both the dogfight and the crash. Snaking his way through the clutter, Emile walked over to the weapons' locker. The JW Armory Storage Cabinet was sitting on its side, having been knocked over during the chaos, but Emile simply grabbed it, and set it back upright.

Punching in the code, Emile wrenched the door open and stepped back as an assortment of weapons came tumbling out. Digging through the pile, Emile immediately located his trusty M45 shotgun, as well as an M6G pistol. Making sure to grab some ammo for both weapons, Emile then proceeded to dig through the cabinet, looking for the weapon most precious to him. Shoving aside the various weapons, he dug through the pile until he reached the bottom of the cabinet and located the small locked box sitting at its base. With an almost air of reverence, Emile carefully lifted the case off the ground and gently placed it on top of an ammo crate nearby, before unlocking it. The top of the box automatically opened to reveal…

Tentatively, as if reaching for a baby, Emile slowly pulled out a kukri knife and sheath. As a close-quarters combat specialist, knives always made up a large part of Emile's repertoire. However _this _knife in particular Emile had quite a significant attachment to. He had first acquired it _years_ ago, stolen from a guard on Onyx, back when he was still training to become a Spartan, and it had accompanied him everywhere he'd gone ever since then. Normally, Spartans were trained not to have any sort of emotional attachment to their weapons, as weapons were tools, and tools were intended to be replaceable, but for Emile, this kukri was everything to him. It was his good luck charm, the one weapon that had never failed him, and he'd be damned if he were to walk out onto an unknown world without it.

Solemnly, Emile attached his blade and sheath to their normal position on his right pauldron, before hitting his radio.

"Two, I'm headed out," Emile reported, before heading up the ladder that brought him to the airlock door that led up to the roof.

Hitting the button that would open the hatch, Emile waited for the metal door to unseal itself before pushing it open. Cautiously, Emile poked his head out and did a quick, three hundred and sixty degree scan of the entire area. Nothing immediately stood out to him. No hostiles, no movement, nor were there any signs of life in the area. He keyed his mic.

"Commander, Two, I'm on top of the ship. No sign of movement."

"_Copy that, Four. Let me or the Commander know the moment that changes. Might want to consider getting comfortable up there: we just finished the preliminary damage assessment and it's not looking good. We might be here for a while."_

"Good to know, Two," Emile replied as he glanced upward, and stared up at the open sky towards orbit. "Though, you should know, the ship's not exactly in cover here."

"_Noble Two, Noble Four."_

Luzader's voice suddenly sounded over the radio.

"_There should be some camouflaged netting inside the cargo bay. Might help but it's probably not going to do much to hide our heat signature."_

"Well, it's better than nothing, sir," Emile noted.

"_Four, you keep guard then, I'll get my people to start working on it. Fields, Langley: do you copy? Break out the camo netting and start setting it up."_

Pulling himself fully out of the ship, Emile dropped down into a crouch, trying to make himself as small as possible so that he didn't silhouette himself on the horizon while at the same time, trying to make sure he had good lines of sight in all directions. Below him, he could hear the sound of the front loading ramp straining to open. The whine of hydraulics filled the air as the door strained to shove all the dirt piled there out of the way, before it suddenly gave way, and Emile felt the ship shake as the thick metal ramp hit the ground.

Emile glanced over the side of the ship to see both Navy crewmembers come running out, carrying the camo netting between them. He watched as they began setting it in place for a moment, before turning back to his watch of the field. Almost immediately, he noticed something had changed in the half second he wasn't paying attention and beneath his helmet, Emile frowned. Pressing himself against the hull, Emile brought his shotgun up to his eye line. After confirming he had in fact, seen what he thought he saw, he reached down and keyed his mic.

"Commander. Noble Two."

"_What is it Noble Four?"_ Luzader asked, sounding distracted.

"Contact."

There was a pregnant pause.

"_What!?"_ Luzader demanded, sounding shocked.

"Contact," Emile repeated. "I got eyes on two foot mobiles, roughly seventy meters due south of our position. Be advised: both appear to be armed."

"_Hold position and maintain eyes Four,"_ Kat commanded. _"Commander Luzader and I are coming out to have a look."_

"Copy," Emile said, then lowered his radio to continue studying the two creatures.

Both creatures were shockingly human in appearance, with both possessing two arms, two legs, two eyes, a nose, and a large mouth. However, that was where the similarities to humanity ended. For starters, instead of skin, these two creatures appeared to be covered in a thick, scaly, pale white hide that from this distance, almost seemed to double as armor. Then there was their size. Clocking in at about two hundred centimeters tall, they were only a few centimeters shorter than Emile was. Not only that, their hands seemed to end in claws, and their teeth appeared to be fangs, as opposed to the molars or incisors regular humans had. In general, these creatures reminded Emile a bit like Covenant Brutes, though these creatures lacked fur of any kind. Instead, they were clad in what appeared to be very crude light armor.

Most alarmingly though, was the fact that both creatures were armed with what appeared to be rifles. Like their armor, the rifles had a very crude appearance to them, and appeared to have been cobbled together using parts salvaged from a junkyard. However, if there was one thing Emile had learned over the years, it was too never underestimate a weapon, no matter how small or crude it appeared, as even the smallest gun in the hands of an expert was enough to be able to kill a Spartan.

Emile didn't look up as he heard the hatch being pushed open behind him, and both Kat and Luzader tossed themselves onto the hull beside him.

"Where are they?" Luzader demanded to know, attaching his MA37 assault rifle to his back and pulling out a pair of binoculars. Kat, being a Spartan herself, obviously had no such need.

"Look in direction one seven four, sir. See that depression in the ground about seventy meters out, almost looks like a crater of some sort?" Emile asked, pointing with his free hand. "I'm looking at two heads and two torsos sticking out just over the near edge of the crater."

"Alright, I got them," Luzader reported, his binoculars pressed against his face.

"Four: where'd they come from?" Kat demanded to know.

"No idea. One moment, nothing. Nada. Look away for half a second, next thing I know, we got observers," Emile reported, feeling slightly uncomfortable. He didn't like this. There was something about this situation that wasn't sitting well with him, something that was triggering just about every single one of his battle-honed senses.

"Could they have been sitting in the field _before_ we landed?" he heard Luzader asking.

Emile shrugged. "Anything's possible, sir."

Luzader made an 'hm' noise, before saying, "Both of you have more experience than I do. You ever see Covenant field soldiers like that before?"

"No, sir," Emile heard Kat replying.

He sensed Luzader nodding in acknowledgement before he fell silent. For the next few seconds, all three of them just laid there, watching the strangers watch them. All the while, Emile waited for either Kat or Luzader to come to a decision.

Eventually, Kat seemed to run out of patience first.

"Sir: what are your orders?"

"I'm thinking," Luzader admitted, before he reached for his radio. "Wydra, come in."

The voice of the helmsman quickly came over the radio. _"Sir?"_

"Give me a sitrep on the status of the _Elise's _repairs, over."

"_Um, non-existent, sir. Ship has taken some major damage, to the point where we'll be needing to replace a lot of parts as they simply can't be fixed. I have DC3 Langley checking the cargo hold now, but… sir, I'm not entirely sure we have all the parts we need."_

"Whoa – does that mean we're stuck here?" Emile couldn't help but ask, however Luzader seemed to ignore him.

"You in the cockpit?" he asked over the radio instead.

"_Yes, sir."_

"Activate long range sensors and point them up. Any sign of Covenant approach?"

"_Negative, sir, scopes are clear. However sir, I should point out that I can't guarantee it will remain that way forever."_

"Understood. Luzader, out."

Emile could see Kat looking at Luzader closely as he lowered his radio, but didn't put it away. "Sir? Care to share your thoughts?"

Luzader absentmindedly nodded before letting out a sigh. "I'm thinking we got to go try and make contact with these guys."

Emile and Kat exchanged a startled look.

"Say what?" Emile exclaimed, but Luzader didn't react. Instead, he lifted his radio again.

"Alright, listen up guys!" he announced. "We might have a situation here. We've got two, unknown contacts roughly seventy meters south of our position. Wydra."

"_Sir?"_

"Get up here. I want you to switch places with the Spartans," Luzader commanded before putting his radio away and glancing at both Emile and Kat. "You two: with me."

Feeling slightly mystified, Emile picked himself up and followed Luzader as he led them through the ship, into the cargo hold, and out through the front loading ramp where the two remaining crew members were standing, having armed themselves with a couple of rifles.

"Sir, do you have a plan?" Kat asked.

"Yes. Well, sort of. So, our situation is that we have two bogies that are clearly not human, and are probably not Covenant. Which means we might potentially have a first contact scenario here. So… I'm going to go out there and see if I can't make contact," Luzader declared.

"Sir, with all due respect… is that wise?" Kat queried.

"Yeah, that doesn't sound like a good idea," Emile said. "You saw the teeth on those guys, right, sir? Do they look like good guys to you? There's something off about this situation."

"Yeah, I know," Luzader reluctantly admitted. "Trust me: last thing I want to do is go talk to a bunch of stinking aliens. But we don't have a choice. If BM2 Wydra is correct, then chances are we're going to be stuck here for a while. If that's the case, we're going to need both raw materials to enact repairs, as well as a place to hide while we do it. But we can't evade both the Covenant _and_ the natives at the same time. We have neither the time nor the resources for that and even if we did, it would be all but impossible to hide a ship this size by ourselves. However, if we can get the natives to help us… here, Warrant Officer, take this."

Emile automatically took the rifle Luzader handed to him.

"Sir, perhaps Four or I should go in your place," Kat suggest.

"First contact scenario," Luzader reminded her. "No offense Lieutenant, but that's not exactly a job for a Spartan. Plus, as a full commander, I'd have more authority to actually authorize something in the event we get lucky and these fellas turn out to be friendlier than they look. Besides, if something does go wrong, you guys would have a better chance saving me than vice versa."

Without another word, Luzader started walking in the direction of the two unknown creatures. As soon as he was out of earshot, Emile glanced at Kat.

"This is not a good idea," he declared.

Kat had her helmet on, so Emile couldn't see the expression on her face, but he could read her body language enough to understand she wasn't exactly happy about this situation either. However, short of knocking Luzader out and tossing him into the cargo bay, there wasn't much she could do.

"Make sure you have a clear line of fire," was all she said before turning to the crewmembers standing there, looking confused. "You two. Go grab a machine gun and join the helmsman up on the dorsal hull and standby to provide covering fire if need be."

"Yes, ma'am!" the two crewmembers yelled and darted off.

In the meantime, Emile had brought his borrowed rifle up to his eye line, and was currently watching the two creatures as Luzader approached them. Despite very clearly moving out in the open, neither of the creatures made any motion to move and instead, merely watched as Luzader slowly approached them.

"_Approaching the creatures now,"_ Luzader suddenly reported over the radio. _"Noble Two: have they done anything?"_

"_Negative, sir,"_ Kat replied.

"_Well, here goes nothing then."_

Emile could hear Luzader breathing rather heavily - out of fear or exertion, Emile didn't know - through the open mic as he walked towards the two creatures. Coming up to a stop roughly thirty meters away from them, Emile watched as Luzader slowly lifted his right hand in greeting, while making sure to keep his left hand open and away from his body.

"_Hello there!"_ Luzader called out in a jaunty tone of voice.

For a moment, the two creatures just stood there, studying Luzader. Finally, one of them stood up and began walking towards him, and Emile noted the creature was unarmed, having left its rifle with its comrade. That was a good sign, as it showed the creatures weren't necessarily interested in hostilities. Despite this gesture of good faith though, Emile couldn't help but remain uneasy. There was definitely something off about this situation, he just couldn't put his finger on what it was.

The creature stalked forward until it was standing less than five meters away from Luzader, and Emile could tell Luzader was doing his best to avoid taking a step back, which sort of made sense to Emile. While Luzader was hardly short, especially when compared to the average human being, the creature still towered over him by a good thirty centimeters. And if there was one thing Emile had learned in his interactions with non-Spartans, people had a tendency to be intimidated by beings larger than they were.

Despite the uncertainty Luzader was clearly showing, he nevertheless rallied quickly.

"_Hello!"_ Emile heard Luzader slowly and loudly say, as if he was speaking to a rather slow child. _"My name is Commander Stephen Luzader._" He pointed at himself. _"Stephen. Who are you?"_

The creature gave no response. In fact, it didn't even seem to show any signs of comprehension. While Emile had hardly expected a brand new alien race never seen before by the UNSC to understand English, he would have thought a being like that would understand speech when it heard it, and respond in kind. Instead, all the creature seemed to be doing was leaning forward and taking a giant whiff. Were they dealing with an entire race of retards?

Without warning, the creature's mouth suddenly split open in what was definitely a grin.

"_human…."_ the creature distinctly and clearly growled.

Emile's head snapped up at that, and he threw a quick glanced in Kat's direction.

"Did… did that thing just speak in English?" he started to ask when the creature began moving its hand toward its waistband and Emile quickly snapped his back in time to see –

"GUN!" he screamed, snapping his rifle up, but before he even had a chance to fire –

_**BANG!**_

The retort of the gunshot echoed across the field as the bullet smashed into Luzader's chest, sending him tumbling over backwards.

"CONTACT!" Emile screamed.

"All units: you're weapons free!" he could hear Kat hollering in the background, but Emile was already way ahead of her: he immediately laid into the trigger.

The sounds of automatic weapons fire began raging over the field as Emile sent a burst of armored piercing rounds in the direction of the hostile. He could see blood spraying out as the rounds slammed home, and the creature's head snapped back as it took a round directly to the face.

"RAHHHHHH!"

The roar of the remaining creature reverberated across the field as it watched its friend's body collapse, and it immediately raised both of its rifles.

"Incoming fire: TAKE COVER!"

The creature opened up, sending return fire streaking back in the direction of the UNSC forces. Emile dropped to one knee as bullets chewed up the ground all around him. Ignoring the supersonic cracking of bullets passing right by his head, Emile coolly sighting the remaining hostile and fired, but the creature hastily took cover before any could connect.

"Four, covering fire!" Kat barked over the radio. "Commander! Status?"

_"I'm down,"_ Luzader groaned over the radio. _"Vest took the round but fuck... got, four, five broken ribs; fucking asshole put the round right into my heart, almost like they knew exactly where to shoot!"_

"Keep your head down, sir," Kat commanded. "We're coming to - "

_"Hang on Lieutenant,"_ Luzader interrupted. "Something's happening..."

Even as Luzader spoke, Emile could feel the ground beginning to shake. Before anyone could do anything -

_**BOOOMMM!**_

\- the crater behind the remaining creature abruptly exploded, sending a wave of dirt and rock straight into the air. At first Emile thought a land mine or an otherwise similar underground explosive had just gone off, but as the dust settled, _more_ of the creatures began pouring out of the crater.

"Contact! Multiple hostiles! Wydra, take out that remaining target. Fields and Langley: suppress. Four, shift fire!"

Emile hunched over and readjusted his rifle as nearly a dozen creatures came scrambling out of the crater. He opened up and immediately sent one creature tumbling back into the ground with a hole between its eyes but unfortunately, the loss didn't even create a dent in the hostiles' formation as two more immediately took his place.

"Anyone got eyes on where all these Tangos are deploying from?" Emile yelled as more and more creatures emerged.

"Negative, but they're cutting us off from the Commander!" Kat yelled back.

A soft voice suddenly sounded over the radio.

_"Noble Two, Noble Four,"_ Luzader whispered. _"I got eyes on some sort of tunnel at the bottom of this crater where all these hostiles are coming from. I have a frag: if I can just get it inside, explosion might be enough to collapse the hole."_

"Negative Commander, don't draw attention to yourself!" Kat started to say but before she could even finish, Luzader abruptly sat up, grenade in hand. Emile watched as Luzader primed the grenade and hurtled it in the direction -

\- only to have it bounce off the crater wall and miss the hole entirely.

_**BOOM!**_

The grenade exploded, generating all sorts of noise and shrapnel, but failing to do much more than that.

Unfortunately, throwing the grenade caused the creatures to realize Luzader was actually still alive and as Emile watched, one of the creatures started running towards Luzader.

"Commander, incoming!" Kat yelled and out of the corner of his eye, Emile could see Kat targeting the incoming hostile, but as she pulled the trigger - "Jam! Four, cover!"

Emile immediately shifted targets and sent an extended burst downrange. Given the haste at which he was forced to engage, Emile opting to shoot at center mass, as there was less of a chance he would miss.

He compensated by firing a six round burst instead of a three round, and started to turn away when he noticed instead of collapsing like he thought it would, the creature continued to charge straight at Luzader, as if nothing had happened.

What the... did Emile somehow miss!? At that range!? Impossible!

Emile hurriedly lifted his rifle to target the creature's head, but before he could pull the trigger, the creature was all over Luzader.

The creature grabbed a hold of Luzader's leg and flipped him over onto his back. As he got spun around, Luzader pulled out a pistol and tried to point it at his attacker, but the creature deftly knocked the weapon away, lifted his leg -

_"AHHHH!" _Luzader managed to scream just before the creature proceeded to curb stomp him.

_**CRACK!**_

The sound of Luzader's skull getting crushed was barely audible over all the sounds of fighting, but Emile managed to hear it nevertheless. He quickly blasted the creature three times in the head and watched as it finally keel over, dead, but it was already too late.

"Fuck! Commander is down! Two, Commander Luzader is KIA!"

"Dammit! Four, we got to get in and cut that flow of reinforcements before they overwhelm us! Wydra, Fields, Langley: suppressing fire! Four, right flank, I'll move up the left! Move!"

Emile immediately started moving up, trying to close the distance between himself and the crater so he could get within grenade throwing range. It was at times like this where he really wished he had his grenade launcher, but he hadn't thought of grabbing it earlier and it would take too long to try and find it now, so he did his best to make do with what he had. He felt his rifle click empty and he tossed it aside, opting to pull out his shotgun instead in preparation for a close-quarters fight. Strangely enough, Emile immediately noticed a higher degree of success with his shotgun as opposed to his rifle, with more hostiles going down with less shots, even though his shotgun was only loaded with buckshot.

Dashing forward, Emile threw himself behind a small depression for cover and immediately rolled up into a kneeling position. Targeting one creature, Emile blew the thing's leg off with one shot, and shot the creature again in the head as it fell. He surged upright and continued to run as the surrounding creatures began targeting his position.

"Gears..." Emile heard one of them roar, though he had no idea what that meant. He _did_ understand when one of them yelled out, "GRENADE!"

Emile jerked his head up in time to see some sort of strange metal device attached to a chain with studs sticking out in all directions headed in his direction, and he snapped his shotgun up and promptly blasted the device out of the air.

_**BOOM**__._

Ignoring the shrapnel that bounced harmlessly off his armor, Emile pulled out a grenade of his own.

"Frag out!" he yelled.

Unfortunately, Emile was just outside of grenade throwing range, even for a Spartan, and his grenade just missed going into the crater by a few centimeters.

_**BOOM!**_

_"Frag out!"_ Emile heard Kat yelling from the other side as he yanked out a second grenade to try again.

_**BOOM!**_

"Frag - "

"BOOM."

A deep, rumbling voice sounded over the battlefield.

_"INCOM - !"_

Emile snapped his head up as an explosion ripped through the top of the _Elise_, right where the ONI crew members had been positioned. Looking back, he could see chunks of metal and body parts getting thrown in all directions.

"BM2 Wydra, do you copy?" he heard Kat calling out as the dust began to settle. "GM1 Fields, do you copy? Come in DC3 Langley."

"Two, they're all dead! We got hostiles!" Emile yelled, hurriedly lifting his shotgun as two new contacts began emerging from the crater.

Unlike the regular creatures they had been fighting against, these two new beings were massive. Standing at about three and a half meters tall, they were nearly twice as tall as the creatures standing next to them. While they looked almost identical in appearance to their smaller brethren, these new creatures were clad in a bit more armor, and were welding what had to be high velocity grenade launchers.

Emile started unloading his shotgun into the newcomers and watched as his shells tore chunks of flesh off them, but unlike the regular creatures, these grenadiers seemed to hardly notice. Instead, one of them turned to Emile.

"BOOM," the creature announced and Emile immediately sidestepped the grenade that rocketed towards him.

Glancing over his shoulder, Emile couldn't help but be mildly impressed by the crater the grenade had left behind. Still, it wasn't enough to deter him.

"'Boom' this asshole," Emile snarled, and hurtled his own grenade.

_**BOOM!**_

The tunnel instantly collapsed as Emile's grenade landed inside the crater. The creatures scrambled to get out of the hole, but Emile nevertheless was able to see at least one of the creatures getting swallowed up by the collapsing earth, sealing the hole up and finally cutting off the flow of incoming hostiles. Still, at least a dozen of these creatures still remained, including the two big "boomers."

"BOOM."

Emile threw himself into a forward roll as one of the Boomers fired another grenade straight at him. As he came out of his roll, Emile was immediately confronted with one of the smaller creatures, who tried to stab him with a jagged knife. Deflecting the blow with the hand guard of his weapon, Emile jammed the muzzle of his shotgun against the creature's chest and pulled the trigger. Ignoring the falling body, Emile tried to reload, only more of the creatures were already on top of him.

"RAHHHH!"

Stepping to the side, Emile deftly dodged one of the creatures as it tried to hit him the butt of its rifle. Swinging his weapon, Emile drove the stock of his shotgun into the creature's jaw, then whirled around and lifted the weapon in time to intercept the swinging blade that had been aimed at his head. Jerking his shotgun to the side and causing the creature to stumble, Emile yanked out the pistol the creature had tucked in its waistband, some sort of revolver style handgun, and rapidly unloaded three rounds into the creature's lower torso. As the creature stumbled back in pain, Emile proceeded to put a single round through the creature's left eye before whirling around and emptying the remaining cylinders into the skull of the initial creature lying on the ground, splattering the alien's brains all over the earth.

Movement immediately caught Emile's attention and he jerked around and raised his pistol but before he could shoot, the hostile that had been charging at him slammed its shoulder right into Emile's stomach in an attempt to tackle him. Fortunately, Emile was able to absorb the blow and instead of getting knocked over, Emile merely dug his feet into the ground, wrapped his arms around the creature still attached to him, and then proceeded to lift the astonished alien straight off the ground and over his head. _Then_ he allowed himself to fall backwards, only this time, letting the creature hit the ground first, stunning it. Before the creature could react, Emile jumped on top of it and began hammering the creature's face, punching it one, two, _three_ times, with the third punch causing the skull to cave in.

An armored foot came out of nowhere but Emile was able to catch it before it hit him in the face and as he surged upright, Emile drove his elbow straight down into the kneecap of the leg, causing a sickening _crack_ to fill the air as the limb was forced to bend in the wrong direction. The creature to whom the leg belonged too began screaming in pain, and Emile grabbed the creature by its collarbone and started to swing the alien around, intending on throwing the body into another crowd of hostiles when -

"BOOM."

Rather than release his hold on the creature, Emile instead yanked the alien closer, in an effort to protect himself as the grenade came streaking in. The grenade slammed into Emile's meat shield and detonated, causing all sorts of blood and gore to coat his armor, but for the most part, Emile was able to escape unharmed. The explosion did unfortunately knock him over and he landed heavily onto the ground, only to immediately roll to the side as a shadow fell over him. Seconds later, the massive foot of the Boomer hit the ground in a failed attempt to stomp Emile's chest in. Leaping to his feet, Emile deftly blocked the Boomer with his right hand as the alien attempted to hit him with the butt of it's grenade launcher, while at the same time, Emile started pulling out his kukri with his left...

"RAHHHHHH!"

The Boomer screamed in pain as Emile swung his blade and managed to sever off all of the Boomer's fingers in one swift, clean blow. Unable to hold onto its weapon, the Boomer was forced to drop it, but before the launcher was able to hit the ground, Emile grabbed it with one hand. While heavy, it wasn't as bad as Emile had expect so he quickly jabbed the muzzle against the Boomer's chin and pulled the trigger.

_click._

The grenade launcher failed to fire, though whether it was jammed or merely out of ammo, Emile couldn't tell. Instead, he opted to head-butted the alien, and while the Boomer was too tall for Emile to hit its face, Emile was still able to hit the alien hard enough in the chest to crack the creature's breastplate, as well as cause the Boomer to stumble backwards. As it did, the Boomer tripped over a dead body and fell to the ground. The creature tried to twist around in mid-air and catch itself, but failed and landed heavily on it's stomach. Before the alien could recover, Emile attacked.

Sheathing his kukri, Emile lifted the disabled grenade launcher over his head, and brought it down hard against the Boomer's back. The cracking of bones filled the air as the grenade launcher's thick magazine broke the Boomer's spine, but it wasn't enough to kill it as Emile could see the Boomer was still moving. With a sense of cool disregard, Emile lifted the grenade launcher above his head and brought it down once more, only this time he proceeded to drive the muzzle of the weapon into the back of the Boomer's head, crushing the skull and instantly killing it.

Tossing the now useless weapon aside, Emile yanked his kukri out and whirled around.

"Grrrraaahhhh!" he snarled, ready to kill the next inhuman son of a bitch that looked his way only to find -

\- there was no one left. All hostiles were down.

Emile glanced around. On the other side of the crater was Kat, looking no worse for wear. At the moment, she was holding one if the smaller aliens in front of her like a meat shield, similar to what Emile had done only a few minutes ago, but as he watched, she reached up, grabbed the creature's head with both hands, and casually snapped its neck. Letting the body tumble to the ground, she walked over to the other Boomer, who was lying wounded on the ground, missing a leg. Lifting a pistol she must have stolen from one of the hostiles as it appeared to be some sort of machine pistol with two magazines attached to the underside of the barrel, Kat proceeded to empty the magazine into the Boomer's head.

_**BRTA BRTA BRTA.**_

"Four, status?" she demanded to know as she tossed the empty weapon aside and reloaded her rifle.

"I'm green," he announced.

"Good. Finish off here, I'm going to go check on the ship!"

She took off in the direction of the Prowler.

Shrugging to himself, Emile began wandering around the battlefield, recovering and reloading all of his weapons, as well as checking to make sure all of the creatures were actually dead.

"Garr..."

Emile looked up at the sound of something groaning, and he spotted one of the creatures, blood pouring from its mouth, trying to crawl back towards the crater. With no more hostiles to worry about, Emile casually sauntered up to the wounded creature and watched with mild amusement as the creature tried to pick up its pace, only it was too wounded to go very far so instead, it quickly gave up. Rolling around so that it was lying on its back, all the creature could do was stare at Emile with hate filled eyes as Emile walked up.

"You are one _ugly_ motherfucker. Did you know that?" Emile conversationally began as he pulled out his magnum and cocked the hammer back. "I'd say this was for Luzader, but between you and me, I didn't like the guy. He was an idiot, and got himself killed because of that. Still. He was human. You're not. Can't be having that, now can we?"

"Human...," the creature growled. "Gear..."

"Sure. Why not?" Emile commented with a shrug as he began to pick up the slack on his trigger -

\- then stopped as a thought occurred to him.

"You know, why was it so hard to take you guys down with my rifle earlier?" Emile commented as he decocked his pistol and put it away. "If it was any other, non-Spartan shooter, I would have said they simply missed. But not me. Not at that range. Which makes me wonder..."

Lifting his rifle, Emile pointed it at the creature's stomach.

"What do you think?" Emile asked. "For science?"

He pulled the trigger.

"AHHHHH!"

The creature began to scream in pain, but Emile was more fascinated by the single, small bullet hole that had been punched into the creature's skin. Flipping the creature over, Emile was astonished to see an almost identical hole in the creature's back.

"That's the entrance wound," Emile commented, glancing at the creature's front.

"And that's the exit wound," he said as he glanced at the creature's back once more. He noted that both holes were almost identical in size and shape, and he could only think of one reason for that. "Son of a bitch. Our rounds are going right through you."

Grabbing a nearby rifle, Emile ripped out the magazine to double check. Sure enough, unlike the armored piercing spitzer rounds that was standard issued for UNSC forces, these rounds, despite being a larger caliber, were all soft-point bullets. Which, in hindsight, made a lot of sense: for the last three decades, the UNSC had been battling the forces of the Covenant Empire, most of whom were equipped with the likes of power armor and energy shields. However, based on what these creatures were wearing, or rather, _not_ wearing, armor penetration was a less desirable requirement compared to stopping power.

"No wonder I was getting better results with the shotgun," Emile conversationally noted. "You know, I think I'm beginning to like this world."

The creature let out a weak groan.

"Oh well," Emile began as he pulled out his kukri. "At least I know this works."

He brought his knife down hard, and watched as the creature's head rolled away from him.

_"Four. Get back to the ship,"_ Kat suddenly commanded over the radio.

"On my way," Emile replied as he wiped his blade and sheathed it.

Making sure he had all his weapons, Emile dashed back to the ship. As he headed up the front loading ramp, Kat came down from the upper decks.

"Bad news Spartan," she began without preamble. "The ship is dead. Too many critical components have been damaged, components our fabricator aren't able to reproduce. Even if it could, with the rest of the crew KIA..."

Kat trailed off and Emile nodded his head. It was pretty much what he had figured. Between the Banshees, the crash, and now the indigenous attack, it would have been _more_ surprising if the ship had somehow managed to escape unscathed. "What's the plan?"

"Abandon ship," Kat said simply. "We have to assume more hostiles are inbound and while we could probably hold them off, we can't do it indefinitely. Our best bet is to disappear. Gather all the weapons and supplies you can carry, then prep this ship for demolition."

"We're destroying our ride?"

"Under no circumstances are we to allow an ONI prowler fall into enemy hands," she reminded him. "We'll determine how we're getting off this world later. Regroup outside in five. Move out."

Without another word, Kat headed back up to the cockpit while Emile headed straight for the weapons locker. The first thing he did was grab as many magazines for his rifle and pistol, as well as all the shells he could find. Who knew when they would get a resupply?

Next came the grenades. He couldn't find his M319 grenade launcher, so in lieu of the 40mils, he instead filled his webbing with hand grenades; fragmentation, smoke, white phosphorus, the works.

Finally, there was the heavy weapons. Despite the multitude of options, Emile knew there was only one choice for him: the M6 Grindell/Galilean Nonlinear Rifle. Colloquially known as a "Spartan Laser," the M6 was one of the only energy based weapons the UNSC had ever fielded, and one of the most devastating, which made it rather versatile as there was very little capable of withstanding its tremendous power. The major downside however, was the weapon and batteries were heavy, even for a Spartan, but given the circumstances, Emile felt the trade-off would be worth it. Especially since, despite the natives appearing to be nothing more than a subterranean species, he couldn't shake the feeling that light infantry weren't all that these aliens had to offer.

Attaching the laser to his back, Emile grabbed a handful of C-12 explosives and began planting them in critical locations around the ship before daisy-chaining them all together. Task complete, he hurried out of the ship. Outside, he joined Kat, who was carrying what appeared to be the ship's radio and hard drive on her back.

"What's the plan Kat?" he asked.

Kat jerked her head in the direction Emile remembered seeing the ruins of the town as having been. "Divide and conquer. I'm hearing sounds of fighting coming from that direction. The destruction, plus the hostility of the natives, implies there's an ongoing civil war. Perhaps we'll be able to find a side that's amenable to our presence."

Emile shrugged. That was as good of a plan as any.

"Move out Spartan," Kat commanded.

They took off in the direction of the fighting. As they ran, Emile lifted his detonator and thumbed it.

The sound of the _Elise_ going up in flames echoed behind them, but Emile had seen and heard enough explosions to no longer be concerned. Instead, he was more interested by the sounds coming from in front of him. There was gunfire, a loud inhuman screaming, as well as -

_**BOOOSSSSHHHHH!**_

A bright orange laser erupted from the sky! Coming straight down from orbit, it struck a specific spot from somewhere in front of them.

"They have orbital weapons? Is that what that satellite was?" Emile exclaimed.

"Unknown! But be prepared for anything!"

He and Kat sprinted down the street as the skies split open once more and another orange laser came streaking down, striking at or near the same spot as before. Whatever and whoever was fighting, it was clearly something powerful as to require not one but _two_ orbital strikes.

And then, all of a sudden, Emile found himself in the midst of all the fighting. Freshly grounded dust, the strong scent of nitroglycerin from all the gunfire, as well as the acrid smell of ozone from the orbital weapon filled the air. Down the street, Emile could see where, and more importantly, _who_, was fighting: a massive figure, similar in appearance to the Boomers Emile and Kat had encountered by the tunnel, only this one was naked and far more savage looking, was fighting against a new party, two humanoid figures clad in heavy gray armor. Even as he watched, the monster began charging at the two gray ones, who desperately fired their rifles, only to have their bullets bounce off the creature's thick skin. It was clear that unless there was to be outside intervention, the two gray figures would soon be dead.

He glanced at Kat.

"Support the new party!" Kat commanded and Emile nodded. Reaching over his shoulder, he pulled out the Spartan Laser and took aim.

"Say goodnight!" he taunted as the laser began to charge up.

_**Bewwww BOOOOSSSSSSHHHHH!**_

A blinding red ruby laser cut through the dust and impacted the monster right in the chest! At once, Emile could see burns instantly appearing on the creature's skin and the creature let out a shriek of pain, but surprisingly it was still alive. In Emile's experience, there were very few things that could survive more than a single Spartan Laser shot. And they were usually Hunters.

Gritting his teeth, Emile took aim again, this time targeting the monster's head. Before the creature could react -

_**Bewwww BOOOOSSSSSSHHHHH!**_

\- the creature's head exploded as it took the full force of the laser head on. The headless body swayed in the wind for a moment before toppling over, and Emile gave a single nod of satisfaction. At least that worked.

"Good shot Four," Kat complimented. "Let's go see if we can't have a better first contact this time around."

Without another word, he and Kat began heading down the street in the direction of the gray figures. At the sound of their approach, one of the figures turned around and -

Emile nearly stumbled when he was able to finally obtain a good look at the gray figures: they were human. Or, at least, almost identical in appearance to humans. In fact, given their size, they probably wouldn't have looked out of place among UNSC ODSTs or Rangers.

But how could this be?

Saving his questions for now, Emile followed Kat until they had gotten to within three meters of the two men before coming to a stop. For a moment, both parties involved just stood there, staring at each other. As they did, Emile quickly scanned the men.

If he didn't know better, he could have sworn he was staring at a couple Joes from the UNSC Army. Both men were wearing thick, heavy armor, though neither men were wearing helmets. Both were wielding rifles similar to the ones he had seen back in the field, and Emile took note of the conventional rifle layout, the lack of stock, as well as the chainsaws attached to the fore end. Both men had rather wary and tired looks, as if they had seen and done some unspeakable things in the name of survival. But most importantly, Emile didn't see a hint of recognition in either of the men's eyes. At this point in the war, Spartans were well known to the general public, having been the subject of many propaganda campaigns. Granted, most of the known Spartans were Spartan-IIs, not III's, but most civilians didn't know the difference. If these men had no idea what Kat or Emile were, then one thing was obvious: they were not UNSC citizens. They were human, but as Emile had found out firsthand, that didn't necessarily mean they were the good guys.

But how to tell?

Finally, Emile decided to open his mouth and ask:

"That was the bad guy, right?"

* * *

**General Notes:**

**\- Luzader: **for those who don't read my Halo stories, specifically _Battle: Actium, _Commander Stephen Luzader is actually a character of mine. In that story, which is set in 2545 or six years before this one, he's a lieutenant commander commanding a different ONI prowler, the UNSC _Moonlight Sonata._ And yeah, both ships are named after Beethoven songs; when naming things, I find it easiest to have a theme.

\- One of the more interesting aspects of the Gears of War games to me is the focus on close combat, including the heavy use of melee and executions. I have and am attempting to include as many GOW executions into this story as possible, but I'm trying to do it in a way that makes sense.

\- Another thing I'm trying to do in this story is work on my depictions of melee combat. It's not something I'm very familiar with as I don't possess any martial arts skill of any kind, and plus it didn't really make much sense in my other stories as usually my main characters are physically smaller than the aliens they were fighting. Because of that, I'm not sure how well these fight scenes are turning out, but hopefully they seem plausible enough.

\- The scene involving Emile's bullets going through the Grub I'll explain in more detail in a later chapter, but the reasoning behind wanting something like that is because for me personally, and based solely on the sound, I always felt that the Lancer in GOW fired a much heavier round than the MA5 assault rifle in Halo. However, I didn't really want to bother proclaiming whether one weapon was better than the other, as I feel that generally leads to arguments about which universe is better than the other (which I'm not that interested in debating,) so I simply decided to make it that both rifles are merely optimized for different targets: one is optimized for heavily armored targets, the other for targets that have a lot of mass.

But, like I said, I'll go into a little more detail on my thoughts in a later chapter.


	3. Chapter 3

So, I guess based on the reviews I got for chapter 2, my depiction of both Kat and Emile wasn't very popular.

Fortunately, reader **Lord of Moons** was willing to offer me some reasons as to why that was, as well as some suggestion on how I might improve, much of which I found rather enlightening. So, thanks to them for that.

That being said, probably won't see any of those changes just yet as I was halfway through writing this chapter when I received the tips, and it's very hard for me to switch gears in middle of a project like that. Plus, I wanted to maintain at least _some _continuity in the way the characters are depicting in this story.

Hopeful though, if I end up writing about Spartans again, I'll be able to depict them a more satisfactory way.

Thanks to my editor, **Darkfire7881**, for editing this chapter.

* * *

**Chapter 3**

**Pirnah Badlands, Tyrus, Sera  
Heat, 14 A.E.**

Dom stared at the figure that had spoken. His mind was a whirlwind of questions: who were these guys? Where did they come from? What were they doing here? How was it they spoke Tyran? And where could he get a weapon like that? So many questions, he didn't know which to ask first.

So he didn't.

Instead, he waited for Marcus to say something, which was his first mistake. Marcus, ever the conversationalist, just stood there, staring at the newcomers, as if waiting for them to continue speaking. Only, it appeared as if the newcomers were waiting for _them_ to say something. And so the awkward silence continued to grow.

It suddenly occurred to Dom that perhaps the silence wasn't so much a result of the newcomers waiting so much as it was, while they had established they knew Tyran, they didn't know if Dom and Marcus _did_. And if Marcus wasn't going to say anything, then Dom might as well.

Clearing his throat and drawing the attention of all members involved, Dom opened his mouth and said, "Um. Yeah. Yeah, that was a bad guy."

_"You speak English,"_ the one in blue suddenly said in a firm, but distinctly feminine voice.

Dom and Marcus shared a side ward glance. English? What the hell was that? Dom spoke exactly one language: Tyran, and a few words in Pesan, though they were all swear words so that didn't count. He, however, had never heard of English before and judging by the expression on Marcus' face, neither had he.

His attention was immediately drawn back to the figures though as the hissing of a vacuum seal being released filled the air, and he looked up to see the figure in blue removing her helmet, allowing Dom to see her face. She looked... well, she wasn't exactly the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen though to be fair, that title had been reserved for both his wife and his daughter. That being said, it wasn't as if she was bad looking either. She had a sort of hard look to her, one that was reinforced by the scars on left temple and right cheek, as well as the military style haircut she was sporting. And although she was currently sporting a rather neutral expression on her face, her eyes spoke of pain and suffering, much like the way it did on everyone else's face on this damn planet. In fact, if it wasn't for the unnaturally blue color to her eyes, as well as her height, she wouldn't have looked all that out of place among some of the female Gears he had known.

Dom glanced at the figure in red to see what he looked like, but all he saw were the hollowed eyes of the image of the human skull scratched into his visor as the red man didn't seem interested at all in removing his helmet.

"Who are you?" Marcus finally asked, and Dom couldn't help but mentally wince. While he was glad Marcus was finally taking charge like he was supposed to, Dom kind of wished he had spoken in a different tone, one that wasn't so blunt. Then again, it _was_ Marcus. He had exactly two tones: blunt and more blunt.

Fortunately, Marcus' tone didn't seem to bother the newcomers as the woman cocked her head ever so slightly, making her seem like an automation rather than an actual person, and spoke up once more.

"My name is Lieutenant Bravo Three Two Zero," she replied and Dom couldn't help but blink at that. That... wasn't a name; that was a designation. "Call sign, Noble Two. This is Noble Four." She gestured at the figure in red. "And you are?"

Marcus grunted.

"I'm Marcus, this is Dom," was all he said.

"We're with COG," Dom added when it became clear Marcus wasn't going to say anything else. "Are you guys UIR? Gorasnayan maybe?"

Noble Two stared at him.

"We're with the UNSC," she finally said.

Dom racked his brain.

"Never heard of it," he admitted.

"No. You wouldn't," Two confirmed. "As we're not of this world."

"'Not of this world?'" Dom echoed with a small chuckle. "What, are you guys like, aliens or something?"

"Yes."

Doom laughed but quickly trailed off when he realized no one else was joining him. "Wait, are you guys serious?"

Without warning, both Nobles abruptly looked up.

"Perhaps it would be best if we had this conversation somewhere more secure?" Noble Two asked.

Dom exchanged a puzzled glance with Marcus. Then he heard it: a bone-chilling howl on the wind.

"Bloodmounts," Marcus immediately declared.

"Shit. Locust are hunting us. We got to get off the road before they catch our scent," Dom said.

"Is that what they're called? Them weird-ass vampire things with the bad attitude?" Four suddenly asked, and Dom quickly shot him a questioning look. What island had these guys been on for the last decade and a half they had never heard of the Locust?

Before Dom could ask, Marcus seized charge.

"You two, come with us," Marcus said, addressing the two Nobles. "Keep your heads down and try not to get in our way."

"We're not exactly boots you know," Noble Four snapped and even though Dom wasn't familiar with the terminology, he could understand the gist of what the man was saying.

Marcus shot Four a nasty glare.

"If you've never even heard of the Locust, then around here you are," he growled.

Two, who Dom noticed had already replaced her helmet, calmly placed her hand on Four's shoulder before he could say anything else.

"Very well," was all she said. "Lead the way."

Marcus shot Dom a look that very clearly said 'watch them,' before taking off down the street. Hefting his Lancer, Dom waited until the Nobles took off after him, before following up in the rear. He wasn't necessarily sure Marcus' distrust of these newcomers was warranted; they did just save their lives after all; but he did agree some caution was needed.

As they jogged down the street, the sound of the Bloodmounts approaching filled the air, though they must not have picked up on the scent of the Gears just yet as they sounded like they were still some distance away. Hopefully it would stay that way; as interested as Dom was to see what the other weapons the Nobles were carrying did, he wasn't in the mood for tangling with Bloodmounts today.

While keeping an eye out for more snipers, Dom wasn't so distracted to not notice as Two deliberately began drifting towards him, clearly intent on asking him some more questions. Honestly Dom welcomed it; he didn't really buy their story of coming from outer space, and he was hoping for more of opportunity to poke holes in their story, and find out where they _really _came from.

"Dom, was it?" Two began as soon as she noticed she had Dom's attention.

"Yep, that's right: Corporal Dominic Santiago. But all my friends call me Dom," he replied.

"'Corporal?'" Two echoed. "Are you guys military? Paramilitary?"

"Military. Me and Marcus, or Sergeant Fenix if you prefer, are both members of the COG Army. At least, what's left of it this far into the Locust War," Dom noted, glancing at Two's face in hopes of seeing signs of recognition. Of course, with her helmet on, Dom couldn't see anything but his own reflection in her visor.

"Ma'am," he quickly added as he suddenly remembered she had called herself 'Lieutenant,' which was an officer's rank. Man, that felt weird saying that. Back in the Commandos, there had always been a rather informal atmosphere, so courtesies like had been generally ignored. Meanwhile, given how small the COG Army had become in the last few years, the traditional divide between officers and enlist had all but disappeared, rendering honorific titles obsolete.

That being said, Dom figured it wouldn't hurt to be a bit polite when talking to Two, even if it was only long enough to establish the Nobles weren't a threat to Dom or his friends.

"How about you, ma'am?" Dom asked in return. "The amount of weapons and armor you're carrying… doesn't seem like stuff civilians would normally carry…"

Dom trailed off when he suddenly remembered some of the Stranded he knew, and he realized that, no, that actually _would _be some of the stuff they would carry if they could get away with it.

Fortunately, Two answered before Dom could allow himself to become too distracted.

"Nominally, we belong to the UNSC Navy," she replied. "However for the last few years, we've been attached to the UNSC Army."

That, Dom could understand. Given that the Locust were primarily a land force, as well as the need for more manpower, whatever remained of the COG Navy had mostly been transferred over to the Army, to the point where the Navy only existed in name only. It didn't surprise him to hear other nations had been forced to do the same thing. Of course, that did raise the question: how did the Nobles find themselves here, in the Pirnah Badlands of all places.

"So, if you guys are from space," Dom began, doing his best to not be sarcastic, "how'd you guys end up here?"

"Our ship had a malfunction, and we ended up crash-landing on the surface."

"A ship, huh?" Dom noted. "Well, why aren't you over there now? You know, it's not a good idea to leave any vehicles unguarded around here. If the Locust don't get to it, then the Stranded will take it apart for salvage."

"They're welcome to whatever's left," Two replied. "Our ship suffered from a critical existence failure."

"It blew up," she elaborated at Dom's questioning look.

"Uh-huh," Dom commented, doing his best to hide his skepticism. That was… convenient.

Unfortunately, he apparently didn't do a good enough of a job hiding it as Two immediately said, "You don't believe us."

Feeling his face flush ever so slightly at being called out like that, Dom gave a guilty shrug.

"No offense ma'am," he apologetically began, "but honestly, this all seems a little farfetched to me. You guys come out of nowhere, save our asses - which I'm entirely grateful for, don't get me wrong - but then claim you're from outer space representing the… URSE?"

"UNSC," Two corrected, and Dom inclined his head in acknowledgement.

"But let's assume that, okay, maybe that's all true. There's still the issue that you guys are human… just like me. I mean, the chances of two identical species evolving on different planets around the galaxy is… hell, I don't even know."

"One in ten to the power of one point six trillion," Two declared and Dom snapped his head in her direction. Did she just…? Surely she just made that number up. "I understand your skepticism Corporal, even if it is admittedly inconvenient at the moment."

She fell silent, and for a moment, Dom couldn't help but feel a bit guilty, even if he didn't know why.

"Well, at the very least, it's not me you need to convince," Dom said as a consolation prize. "It's my superiors. They're the ones who make these kinds of decisions. Me? I'm just a simple Gear, so maybe you'll have better luck convincing them."

"Any chance we'll be able to see them soon?" she asked.

Dom jerked his head Marcus' direction.

"That's where we're headed right now ma'am: to find somewhere safe to make a call," Dom declared. Left unsaid was the fact that it was going to be a radio call, not a meet in person as there was no way Dom was going to leave these two in the same room with the likes of Hoffman or Prescott. At least, not until it was proven they weren't hostile.

"We're here," Marcus suddenly announced, and Dom guiltily jumped. He had to admit, he had sort of lost track of where they were. He quickly looked around.

Marcus had let the group to a somewhat damaged but still standing building with plenty of good cover and good lines of sight for the defenders. But more importantly, the building was sitting on a good solid concrete slab that had to be several feet thick, which meant it would be difficult for the Locust to be able to open a Grub hole right underneath them.

Marcus glanced at Dom and wordlessly gestured for him to join him. That wasn't the only voiceless communication going on though; as soon as they stopped, the Nobles glanced at each other and either they had a private radio connection with each other under their helmets or they had some way of non-vocally talking to each other because without a noise, both of them pulled out their rifles and headed to opposite corners of the room where they could not only watch for potential Grub activity, but also keep an eye on Marcus and Dom. It was a bit impressive, and honestly left Dom a bit worried.

"You find out anything more?" Marcus asked in a quiet voice, and Dom suddenly realized Marcus had been planning on this to happen.

Dom shook his head.

"Not really," he truthfully said. "They said they're a part of the UNSC Navy, whatever that is, and that they had a spaceship but it blew up. I'm still not convinced they're telling the truth about them coming from outer space, but they certainly believe they are."

"What a mess," Marcus groaned. "Got enough problems with the Grub as it is, now we got aliens?"

"I did tell them they would have a chance to talk to Colonel Hoffman," Dom added.

"Ah, hell," Marcus said with a sigh. "I don't even know how the hell we're going to explain _this _one."

"Well buddy, you're in charge so… good luck," Dom jauntily told him.

All Marcus did was shot him a nasty look as he activated his radio.

"Control? This is Delta. Come in."

Static filled the radio for a moment before Anya's lovely voice come on.

"_Delta? This is Control,"_ she said, relief evident in her voice._ "Good to hear from you. We were starting to get worried."_

Dom could see Marcus wince ever so slightly at that.

"Sorry 'bout that, things had been…" Marcus glanced at Dom. "…different."

"_Different? How so?"_

"Both the rookies are dead," Marcus informed them without preamble. "Sniper and Berserker got them. We got the Berserker but… ah hell, I don't even know how to say this. We found something. Someone. We need to talk to Colonel Hoffman."

"_-nel Hoff -? Say -gain? You - bre - …"_

"Control? Control? Come in Control! Do you copy?"

Dom and Marcus shared a worried look. That wasn't a good sign.

"Is there something wrong?"

Dom nearly jumped out of his skin. He whirled around, only to see Two standing behind him. How did she… she was across the room! How did she get behind him without him or Marcus noticing? Both he and Marcus were long time veterans, not just of the Locust War, but of the Pendulum War. At this point, it should have been all but impossible to sneak up on them.

"Not really," Dom replied, doing his best to hide his concern. After all, if _she_ could sneak up on him, then who else could? "We're just having some connection problems. Might be the satellite. It's been a while since it's been – "

Two shoved him.

Taken completely off-guard, Dom stumbled backwards, immediately lost his balance, and went crashing into Marcus, knocking them both to the ground. Before Dom could react, Two whipped out a handgun, one that looked like someone had tried to combine the best features of a Boltok and a Snub pistol, pointed it outside, and fired a single shot.

At once, the noise seemed to hit Dom all at once.

_CRACK! BAM!_

The retort of a Longshot sniper rifle going off, followed quickly by the gunshot of Two's handgun filled Dom's ears and he looked down the block in time to see a Sniper Drone toppling out from his perch, minus a head.

How the hell did she spot him…?

"CONTACT!" Four suddenly yelled.

"_RAHHHHHHH!"_

Four's rifle… shotgun… whatever it was immediately came to life as the Drone's war cry filled the air. Grubs began pouring out from the building directly across the street where they must have been waiting in ambush.

"GRUBS!" Dom screamed, his Lancer instantly appearing in his hands as he scrambled to his feet. "It's an ambush!"

"TAKE THEM OUT!" Marcus bellowed but the Nobles were already way ahead of them. Both their weapons were blazing away and already, Dom could see the bodies of three Drones laying on the ground, each one having been killed by a single three round burst to the head.

Not one to be outdone by a pair of foreigners, aliens or not, Dom hurriedly slid into cover behind a nearby waist-high wall. Ignoring the Hammerburst rounds that smashed into brick right next to him, Dom lifted his rifle and started searching for a target. He spotted one Drone, a particularly ugly bastards who was missing an eye, dashing forward for cover. Leveling his Lancer, he let it rip.

_BRATATATATATA!_

Dom's initial burst missed as the recoil caused his rifle to bounce around but Dom quickly managed to bring it under control with practiced ease. Letting up on his trigger long enough to re-sight his target, Dom fired again.

_BRATATATATATA!_

Bullets smashed into the Drone, cutting through his armor like it wasn't even there, and tearing out chunks of flesh from underneath. The Grub tried to return fire but wounded as he was, he wasn't able to aim properly and all the return fire went no where. Coolly, Dom switched over to semi-automatic for a moment and fired one more shot.

_BAM._

The Drone keeled over as the round penetrated his stomach and exited out the other side, effectively removing the Grub from the fight. Behind his rifle, Dom allowed a small smile to grace his face: retribution for all the people the damn Locust had murdered.

_CRACK!_

Dom couldn't help but flinch as a single round passed right over his shoulder, and he quickly pivoted around to target the shooter. He spotted one Drone standing out in the open frantically trying to reload his Hammerburst and not one to ignore such an easy target, Dom fired.

He could see the Drone's left arm flying through the air as Dom's first burst literally sawed the limb off. Blood began gushing out from the stump, causing a pool to quickly form, while all the Drone could do was stare stupidly at where his arm once was. The Drone wasn't given much time to dwell on it as Dom proceeded to plant another burst into the Drone's chest, caving it in.

"GRUB HOLE!" Marcus suddenly screamed. "Dom, shift fire right!"

Dom glanced over his shoulder in time to see the Grub hole as it finished emerging onto the surface. From the hole came nearly half a dozen _more _Drones, causing Dom to swear.

"Shit! I'm on it!" he yelled, hauling himself to his feet and rotating over to the right side of the building.

"Noble Four, go help him!" he heard Two yell and out of the corner of his eye, he could see the red guy pulling his weapon from the spider hole he'd been shooting from and shifting over.

Reaching the wall first, Dom immediately planted his rifle on top for extra stability and opened up on the new Drones. He instant felled one by blasting it in the kneecap, and followed it up with a single shot to the Drone's head, splattering the street with the creature's brain.

Gunshots began ringing out from beside him and Dom looked over to see Four, with his weird looking rifle with the magazine located behind the trigger, blazing away. Based on the casings that were being ejected out the side, the bullets Four were firing seemed to be much smaller than the ones Dom had loaded in his Lancer, but it didn't seem to be affecting Four all that much as he instantly domed a Grub with a quick burst to the head.

"Nice shot!" Dom couldn't help but compliment, but Four didn't respond and instead, proceeded to empty the rest of his magazine into another nearby Drone.

"Loading," Four called out, sounding almost bored as he ejected his magazine and loaded a fresh one before the spent one even had a chance to hit the ground. "Back up!"

"Hey!" Dom yelled, trying to catch Four's attention. "Hey Noble! We got to take out that Grub hole, otherwise they're just going to keep coming! Let's see if we can't flank around on the – "

A small object flying through the air towards him immediately caught Dom's attention and he quickly cut himself off and looked up in time to see a Bolo grenade headed in his direction.

"GRENADE!" he screamed and started to duck down when –

_**KABOOM**_

Dom flinched as shrapnel pelted the street directly in front of him, but the grenade hadn't exploded anywhere near him because somehow, upon seeing the incoming grenade, Four had whipped out his shotgun and with one hand, proceeded to blast the grenade out of the sky, a trick Dom had only seen once, in a movie.

Rather than waste time with compliments, Dom started to look around for where the grenade had come from, only to see a Grenadier Drone standing right by the Grub hole, prepping another Bolo.

"We got a Grenadier!" Dom warned. "We got to take him out!"

"Where?" Four calmly asked.

"Over there!" Dom yelled back, pointing.

"Oh crap!" he yelled, lifting his Lancer as he saw the Grenadier starting to swing the grenade in preparation to throw it.

_BAMBAMBAM_

Dom blinked as three bullets holes instantly appeared in the center of the Grenadier's forehead. The grouping was so tight, at first Dom though the hole was the result of one massive bullet, but then he noticed the three fresh casings rolling across the floor away from Four. He quickly glanced at the Grenadier and watched as the Drone swayed, as if the Grub's body was trying to decide if it was dead or not, before the Grenadier toppled over backwards into the Grub hole, active grenade still in hand.

_**beepbeep BOOM!**_

With a roar, the Grub hole proceeded to collapse on itself.

"Okay, I take back what I said earlier: now _that _was a good shot!" Dom yelled.

Once again, Four didn't say anything, but Dom could practically _hear _the vicious grin the man was undoubtedly wearing.

Realizing he needed to step up his game, Dom hastily ripped out the magazine and tossed into his dump bag so he wouldn't lose it. Reaching down to his belt, he pulled out a specific magazine loaded with some special rounds: overpressure rounds, to be exact, which would theoretically, temporarily increase the damage output of his Lancer.

Jamming the magazine in, Dom racked the charging handle.

"Oh _yeah," _he couldn't help but exclaim before opening fire.

His first target was a Drone that was blind firing his Hammerburst from behind a small concrete wall. Normally that was a problem, but not with P+ rounds. Aiming right about where the Drone's torso would be, Dom let him have it. He watched as chunks of concrete were sent flying through the air as his rounds punched right through the wall, causing the Drone to practically explode as his chest was perforated.

Hammerburst fire began chipping away at Dom's cover, and he hurriedly rotated around to shoot back at the Drone. A small grunt slipped through his lips as a single round impacted his chest, but fortunately it failed to penetrate his armor. Rather than relocate, Dom opted to continue firing, in the hopes he would be able to finish the Drone off before he got hit again. Dom couldn't help it. As ridiculous as it sounded, when he had overpressure rounds loaded, he couldn't help but feel invincible, as if he could take on the entire Locust Army all by himself.

Of course, the feeling only lasted as long as the bullets did in his magazine, but by the time his rifle clicked empty, the remaining Drones had already been eliminated.

Ejecting the empty magazine onto the ground, Dom scanned the battlefield as he reloaded: the bodies of nearly a dozen and a half Drones littered the ground. Meanwhile, on the side of the good guys, not a single person had been wounded. Dom had of course seen battles before where the ratio was that badly skewed, but usually those battles had involved the heavy use of air support and indirect fire assets, like mortars. Rarely had he ever seen four guys wreak that much havoc all by themselves, most of which he felt could be attributed directly to the newcomers.

"All clear!" Marcus roared, officially signaling the end of the fight.

"Damn…" Dom couldn't help but comment as he climbed to his feet. "I don't know if you guys are really aliens or not, but there's no denying: you sure are helpful in a fight."

"That's what we _do," _Four confidently declared.

Marcus came walking up, and although he didn't say anything, Dom could tell he was pretty impressed himself. Still, he managed to remain professional.

"Dom, your radio working?"

Dom pressed a hand against his right ear, hoping to hear Anya calling out to him, but all he received was static. He shook his head.

"Comms are down," he confirmed.

"Damn," Marcus swore. "Grubs must have a Seeder in the area."

"Gonna have to take it out if we want to restore the network."

"What's a Seeder?"

Dom looked up to see both Two and Four standing nearby, though which one had spoken he wasn't sure. Strangely enough, Dom was no longer bothered by the fact they were so close to him now. Strange how surviving through _one _firefight together could cause a group of strangers to start trusting each other.

"A Seeder is…" Dom began as he thought about how to describe what one was. "They are a giant spider-like thing, about the size of a one story building. Sticks out from the ground like a sore thumb. It fires these smaller jellyfish-like things call Nemacyst out of their asses and for some reason, we're still not sure how, they're capable of disrupting communications in the general area around them. Locust like to use them as both artillery pieces and radio jammers."

He looked up, only to see both Nobles staring at him and even though he couldn't see their faces, he could just _feel _their looks of incredulity. Upon mentally reviewing everything he had just said, only this time approaching it as an outsider with no prior knowledge, Dom did have to acknowledge that what he just said did seem rather ridiculous in hindsight. That being said, Dom had lost far too many friends to Seeders and as such, he couldn't help but be slightly put off by the Nobles' reaction.

All of a sudden, Four started laughing.

"I would _very much _like to see one of these things," he declared.

"You'll get your chance soon," Marcus growled and Dom could tell he too was a bit annoyed by the reaction of the Nobles. "I think I got a lock on their location. Let's move out Delta!"

Hefting their weapons, they took off. As they made their way through the town, they automatically drifted into the formation they had assumed earlier, with Marcus on point, the Nobles in the center, and Dom following up the rear. As before, Dom noticed Two slowing down her pace so she could get close enough to talk without resorting to shouting.

"How exactly does one take out a Seeder?" she quietly asked him.

"With a lot of firepower," Dom replied. "Normally we'd need the Hammer of Dawn, but I guess you guys have that covered."

He jerked his head in the direction of the large laser weapon Four had attached to his back.

"What is that by the way?" he added.

"M6 Grindell/Galilean Nonlinear Rifle," Two casually replied, as if that was supposed to mean something to Dom. "The Hammer of Dawn. Was that the orbital bombardment weapon we saw earlier? Is that what that satellite sitting in high orbit is for?"

Dom stared at her skeptically.

"You've _seen_ the Hammer of Dawn satellite?"

"We're from space," she reminded him. "Spotted one of the satellites on our way in."

"Right… of course…"

Two didn't say a word and instead, returned, to her spot in the line. For the next few minutes, the entire group made their way through the town in silence. That is, until a foul smell began to fill the air.

Tilting his head up, Dom inhaled deeply and immediately regretted it as the pungent scent filled his lungs.

"You smell that?" he asked Two.

Two made a negative sounding noise and pointed at her helmet.

"Vacuum sealed, with filters for chemical, biological, and nuclear agents," she reported.

"Well, how good is it at spotting snipers?" Dom couldn't help but sarcastically ask.

Two fixed him with a stare.

"Very," was all she said and Dom was about to explain when he suddenly remembered how she had managed to locate and eliminate a Drone Sniper not even fifteen minutes ago, all with a single pistol shot, and he swallowed his words instead.

"Um, well, the smell is from the Seeders," he said instead in an attempt to mask his blunder. "Means we're getting close."

"I understand," was all she said.

As they got closer, Dom began to hear the screaming of the Nemacyst as they passed through the air and at the front of the line, he could see Marcus gesturing for the squad to take cover inside a nearby building. Waiting until the rest of the squad had entered, Dom took a moment to glance around the area for threats, before following them in.

"Listen up," Marcus began as soon as they were inside. "Seeder should be on the other side of this building. We'll go up to the roof and have a look so we can plan our attack. Dom, secure our exit."

Dom nodded as he instantly know what Marcus wanted him to do. Reaching into a pouch mounted just above the small of his back, he pulled out a Bolo grenade. Ignoring the stares of the Nobles, Dom armed the device, then carefully but firmly, shoved it against the doorframe where it stuck.

"It's got a proximity setting," Dom explained, answering the invoiced question. "Anyone comes through here now, boom."

"Interesting," was all Two said, however Four was a bit more vocal in his appreciation.

"Shit. How come ours don't do that?" he asked.

Two didn't say a word and Dom could see Marcus shaking his head.

"Let's get upstairs," was all he said.

They headed up to the roof, taking pains to go one at a time least the archaic staircase collapse under their combined weight. Once on the roof, almost as one, all four of them dropped to their stomachs and began crawling forward until they reached the edge, where they started scanning.

The building was sitting on the bank of what had once been a busy highway. The highway was about seventy to seventy-five feet in length and covered with rusted vehicles, many of appeared to have already been stripped for parts. On the other side of the highway, just past the crumbling sound wall, was what appeared to have been a parking lot in a past life. It was there where the Seeder was located.

"That's the Seeder?" Dom heard Four asking and he nodded his head in confirmation.

"Don't look like much," Four declared, sounding disappointed.

"That's 'cause you're only seeing half of it," Dom informed him. "The front, more vulnerable half, is still underground."

"Huh."

"Noble, how many shots from your laser is it going to take to kill that thing?" Marcus demanded to know.

Dom looked up to see Four glancing in Marcus' direction.

"How the fuck should I know?" Four said. "I don't know how armored that thing is."

"Seeders are usually just a little bit less armored than Berserkers," Dom explained. "They're still tough, but not that tough."

"If that helps," he added as he realized the Nobles might actually not know how tough Berserkers were.

Apparently they did because Four shrugged and said, "In that case, it'll probably take four or five shots."

"How fast can you shoot that many shots?" Dom asked.

"If I override the safety, couple of minutes."

Marcus grunted in acknowledgement.

"Sergeant," Two suddenly said. "How do you propose we take out all the Locust guards surrounding this… Seeder?"

She pointed at the dozen or so Drones milling around, guarding the Seeder.

"You have grenades, right?"

Two nodded.

"Then we'll open up with a volley of grenades, take out as many as we can. Then, Four focuses on killing the Seeder while we," Marcus gestured at everyone else, "kill everyone else."

He looked around, as if seeing if anyone had any questions. For his part, Dom was pretty satisfied. It was a fairly straightforward, but effective, plan. He liked plans that were that simple; less chance for something to go wrong.

"Let's not wait around for the Drones to spot us then," Dom declared as he pulled out his remaining Bolo and watched as everyone followed suit. He was surprised to see the Nobles pulling out a grenade that was about a fifth the size of his own. Granted, that was because apparently they weren't attached to chains but still, Dom could only hope they had about as much explosive power as Bolos did. "Lieutenant? Why don't you kick things off?"

Two nodded and Dom began spinning his grenade trying to build up enough momentum so that he could ensure the explosive bomb would actually make it the full length across the highway. Once everyone appeared to be in position, Two abruptly stood up: "FRAG OUT!"

Dom proceeded to hurtled his grenade as hard as he could. He watched as four explosive devices flew through the air and just before they landed, one of the Drones happened to look up in their direction. And then that was when all hell broke loose.

"GEARS!" the Drone screamed, draw all attention to the humans lying prone just one the other side of the highway. But just as the Grubs started to react, the grenades simultaneously exploded.

_beepbeep __**BOOMBOOM!**_

Shrapnel ripped through the Locust ranks, throwing the entire line into chaos as Drones were unexpectedly ripped to shreds or otherwise knocked off their feet.

"Let 'em have it!" Marcus roared, and Dom needed no further prompting.

His Lancer came to life once more as Dom opened up with everything he had. Bullet casings began piling on the roof as rifle rounds smashed into the confused Locust Drones, causing even more panic to spread as they tried to figure out what to do. Dom targeted one tall bastard that looked like he was trying to get thing organized and fired half his magazine at the creature, practically cutting him in half. As the Grub collapsed, Dom immediately switched targets and started shooting at what looked like a Cyclops of sorts, but before Dom could fire off more than a couple rounds, another grenade thrown by Two landed at the Grub's feet, blowing the Drone to shreds. Undeterred, Dom hurriedly switched targets over to a Drone that was already taking fire from Marcus. Between the two Lancers, the Drone was cut to pieces.

Without warning, there was a blinding flash of red and Dom reflexively glanced to his right in time to see more energy gathering at the muzzle of Four's laser before he promptly fired again, spearing the Seeder in the center. At first, it almost appeared as if the Seeder wasn't getting effected, but then Dom noticed Four had actually been targeting the Seeder's legs. Dom could see the Seeder's ass wiggling as it prepared to fire off a Nemacyst, but then another laser scored a direct hit on the hole, causing the Nemacyst to explode before it could fully emerge.

An inhuman screaming filled the air and it took Dom a few minutes to realize it was actually the Seeder. The massive beast began writhing, as if it was preparing to try and head back underground, back to safety, but then Four hit one more time with a laser, and apparently that was all it took as the Seeder let out one last cry and promptly collapsed.

"Seeder down!" Dom roared.

"Take out the remaining Locust!" Marcus demanded, but there was hardly any need. Even as Dom turned back to the fight, the last remaining Drone was getting cut down by one of the Nobles.

"Locust down," Two declared as she fired one last bullet into the head of the last remaining Drone. The corpse toppled forward and fell down into the highway where it landed on a rusted out hulk of a car, crushing it, and sending a cloud of dust billowing into the air.

"ALL CLEAR!" Marcus yelled as all guns feel silent.

Dom looked around, feeling deeply satisfied. In less than five minutes, the four of them had managed to not only kill over a dozen Drones, but they had also managed to kill a Seeder. If they kept this up, this war would be over before he knew it.

"Comms should be back up," Marcus said as he climbed to his feet. "Let's get a Raven extract before – "

The rattling of a chain caught Dom's attention, and he looked up in time to see a grenade flying up from over the lip of the building and land in the middle of the squad.

"INCOMING SMOKE GRENADE!" Dom started to scream but it was too late. With a loud _POP, _the smoke grenade exploded, immediately filling the area with black smoke.

Lungs filling up with smoke and unable to see, all Dom could do was start coughing as he blindly staggered around, looking for the edge of the smoke cloud. By some miracle, he managed to find it, only to open his eyes and see a massive white creature leaping straight towards him, mouth wide open revealing massive fangs, all dripping with saliva. The Bloodmounts! Dom had completely forgotten all about them, and now it was going to cost him.

Automatically, Dom started to activate the chainsaw on his Lancer, but in his heart, he knew it was going to be too late.

Dom flinched as hot blood splattered across his face, and he quickly leapt to the side as the Bloodmount went crashing to the ground as a slug fired from a shotgun slammed into the creature's skull. He looked back to see Four emerging from the smoke and full on tackled the Drone Beast Rider, who was just beginning to get up, knocking him back to the ground. Quickly surging upright, Four immediately grabbed a hold of the Drones arm and, with one foot planted on the Drone's chest to keep him pinned down, pulled hard enough on the arm to _actually rip the entire limb off._ He could see Four glance at the arm before promptly using it to _beat the Drone _to death. Unfortunately, that hadn't been the only attacker.

"LOCUST!" Dom screamed, triggering his chainsaw as more Bloodmounts began appearing over the edge of the roof. One immediately began to charge at him, but this time Dom was ready for it.

Ducking under the Bloodmount's snapping jaws, Dom swung his Lancer and drove his active chainsaw bayonet into the Bloodmount's torso. Gunning the engine, Dom proceeded to drive the saw forward as it chewed through bone, flesh, whatever, throwing blood and entrails in all direction. The Bloodmount let out a loud shriek before collapsing, depositing its Drone rider onto the ground. The Drone tried to draw its Boltok pistol as it rolled to the side, but before it could, Dom leapt at the Grub and landed right on top of it. Dropping his Lancer, Dom whipped out his commando knife, and proceeded to jam the blade straight through the Drone's left eye.

"AHHHH!" Dom roared as he ripped the blade out, bring the Drone's eyeball with him, before stabbing the Drone several more times in the face. "Eat shit and die!"

_BAM._

Dom was sent staggering as something hit the back of his head. He pitched forward and rolled onto his back, pulling out his Snub pistol as he did, but the Drone simply knocked it out of his hand before leveling his shotgun.

"DOM! STAY DOWN!"

_BRATATATATA!_

More blood was sprayed all over Dom's face as several massive exit wounds were blown through the Drone's chest, and he hurriedly rolled to the side as the Drone pitched face first into the ground. He looked up to see Marcus, smoking Lancer in hand.

"Dom! Get up! On your feet soldier!" he roared, extending his hand. Dom grabbed it and with Marcus' help, he climbed to his feet and looked around. What he saw left him speechless.

Both the Nobles were currently engaged with nearly two dozen Bloodmounts, their riders, as well as a few Wretches. Despite these odds though, the Nobles were not only holding their own, _they were winning._ Both of them were moving with a grace that Dom didn't think possible for a human being, at speeds that were nearly impossible to track with the naked eye.

Two had her sidearm out and was effectively engaging the Locust at point blank range. As Dom watched, two Drones charged straight at her, intent on beating her to death with their bare hands, but Two deftly spun around the first, snapped her pistol up, and fired a single shot into the head of the second Drone, who instantly dropped like a puppet who's strings had just been cut. At the same time she was doing that, Two had reached behind her, grabbed a hold of the back of the first Drone's vest, and yanked him down. As the Drone started to fall, Two jammed the muzzle of her pistol against his forehead and fired a single round right through the Locust's skull.

Another Drone came running up, Hammerburst in hand, but Two quickly knocked the rifle out of the way with the end of her handgun and proceeded to plant two rounds into the Drone's chest, followed by a single shot to the head. As she sidestepped out of the way to avoid the falling body, Dom could see the slide on her pistol had locked back but as she started to reload, a third Drone came running up and tried put her in a headlock from behind. Instead of panicking or even dropping her weapon, Two reached behind her, grabbed a hold of the Drone, and then pitched forward, flipping the Grub right over her shoulder. At the same time the Drone hit the ground, Two's armored foot came down right onto the Drone's neck, and Dom could see the Drone's throat getting crushed by the heavy impact. As the Drone struggled to not only remove the leg, but also to breathe, Two calmly finished reloading. Fresh rounds in place, Two pointed her pistol straight down and fired a single shot through the Drone's mouth, which passed right through the soft tissue in the back and out the other side, severing the medulla at the base of the skull in the process, instantly killing the Drone.

Doing so however attracted the attention of a nearby Drone, who leveled a shotgun at her. But just as he pulled the trigger, Two threw herself into a forward roll, sliding underneath the shell as passed by overhead while simultaneously putting a single bullet into the Drone's knee, causing the Grub's leg to collapse. As she pulled out of her roll, she shot the Drone once more in the head and surged upright just as a Wretch leapt at her. Somehow, Two was just able to twist out of the way, dodging the Wretch's sharp claws while at the same time, using the Wretch's momentum against him, she sent the creature sprawling onto the ground. Before the Wretch could recover, Two put a single round through each of the creature's eyes.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the roof, Four had apparently opted out of using guns entirely as he was attacking the Locust head-on with nothing more than a knife that looked more like a bent machete than anything, and his fist. At the moment, he was battling against a Beast Rider, who thrusted a dagger towards his face. Four deflected the blow upwards with his free hand, while slashing at the Drone's now-exposed chest with his knife in the other, sending the Grub staggering.

Another Drone ran up and pointed a Hammerburst at Four's back, but before Dom could even think to shout out a warning, Four whirled around and hurtled his knife and then ducked as a Bloodmount leapt at him. The surprised beast found itself with a mouthful of Grub flesh instead of human as it flew right over Four's head and plowed into the first wounded Drone instead, knocking them both to the ground. Before they could recover, Four ran up, wrapped his arms around the Bloodmount's neck, and gave a sharp twist, snapping it. Doing so somehow caused the Bloodmount to reflexively bite down, and the Drone let out a bloody gurgle as the creature's fangs perforated his throat, causing the Beast Rider to choke as his windpipe filled with blood.

In the meantime, the knife Four had thrown had embedded itself in the second Drone's upper thigh, hitting with enough force, a little more than half the blade was buried. The Drone had instinctively dropped his rifle to try and remove the knife, temporarily removing him from the fight, as a third Drone ran up to Four and tried to hit him in the back while he was distracted. However, Four immediately proved he wasn't one to be caught unawares like that as he whipped around and managed to catch the Drone in the throat with a clothesline. The Drone hit the ground hard whereupon Four delivered a vicious kick to his face, and Dom could see the Drone's teeth spraying out from his mouth.

As the Drone started writhing around on the ground, gripping his mouth in pain, Four had leapt forward and rolled right up to the second Drone, who was still trying to remove the knife from his thigh. Knocking the Drone's hands out of the way, Four grabbed a hold of his knife, yanked it straight out with a splash of blood, and slashed upwards across the Drone's torso. The Drone's skin immediately split apart, the sharp edge of the blade easily slicing through the Drone's thick skin, causing all sorts of entrails to start spilling out. But if that wasn't enough, Four proceeded to put his fist into the wound he just created, before delivering a push kick that sent the Drone flying backwards into a couple of Wretches standing nearby. As the Drone slid backwards, Dom happened to notice the grenade loosely sitting inside the Drone's stomach where Four had placed it, moments before it exploded. The Grub was instantly eviscerated while both Wretches were seriously wounded. In the meantime, Four had whirled around and dropped to the ground in order to plunge his knife straight into the wounded Drone's heart, finishing him off.

The entire time this was all happening, Dom and Marcus were standing off to the side, watching the fight go down as the Locust had opted to ignore the two Gears entirely in favor of trying to eliminate the largest threats. Feeling decidedly useless, Dom lifted his Lancer in an attempt to help out, but held his fire as there was too much of a risk his rounds would hit the Nobles instead. Plus, every time he tried to target something, one of the Nobles would abrupt take it out.

And then suddenly, just like that, it was over as quickly as it began.

Dom watched as Four brought his knife down onto a Drone's head, splitting the skull apart. Grabbing the hilt with both hands, Four planted one foot onto the Grub's chest and yanked it free, before turning away to wipe the blade clean as the Drone slumped to the ground. Then, as if by some wordless agreement, both Nobles abruptly turned to stare at the Gears.

Dom and Marcus stared back.

Surrounded by nearly two dozen Locust bodies, the Nobles were completely coated in blood, guts, and gore. Yet somehow, they had both managed to escape the melee completely unharmed. It was simultaneously the most beautiful and most terrifying sight Dom had ever seen in his life, and he could only think of one thing to say:

"You guys really_ are_ aliens."


	4. Chapter 4

I had been holding out hope that I would somehow be able to drag this story out into five chapters, however as I was writing this chapter, I quickly realized - as I didn't want to include anymore combat scenes - that I barely had enough content for this chapter, much less a fifth chapter. So, what you see here is unfortunately all that I could come up with.

* * *

**Chapter 4**

**Local Designation: "Pirnah Badlands"  
Planet: "Sera"  
March 2, 2551 (Standard UNSC Calendar)  
Heat, 14 A.E. (Local Calendar)**

With her body mostly hidden by the shadows, Kat carefully kept watch of the road below. She was keeping a sharp eye out for these aptly named Locust, even though it seemed unlikely they would attack again so soon. After all, in less than two hours' time, two Spartan-IIIs and two soldiers from the local native resistance army had managed to decimate about a company's worth of infantry without suffering any casualties of their own. Such a skewed ratio would normally deter any attacker from conducting further offensive operations, at least not without serious reconsideration of their tactics. But then again, history had shown time and time again that blind fanaticism had a tendency to override sound strategy, with the Covenant being the prime example, so it didn't hurt to be cautious.

Behind her, she could hear a mute conversation taking place as the two native human soldiers she and Emile had encountered, Sergeant Fenix and Corporal Santigo, spoke to their superiors over their radio, one Colonel Hoffman, trying to explain exactly what they had found. Kat didn't envy them. While she had found herself in strange situations before, none of them quite ranked as odd as this one was turning out to be, and she wasn't sure how she herself was going to explain all of this to her _own_ superior, Colonel Holland. Though, given how far away any potential debrief would occur, if ever, Kat supposed she would have plenty of time to mull it over. Logical thing to do, she supposed, would be to start with the natives.

Kat took a moment to do just that. Specifically, the two soldiers they had discovered. The two… Gears, as they called themselves. They were honestly both rather impressive soldiers. Nowhere near Spartan level, but then again, very few people were. But, they were up there. Kat generally never bothered drawing comparisons between individual soldiers, as combat ability both varied greatly from one person to the next plus fighting alone on the battlefield was practically unheard of, however if she really had to, she would probably compare Fenix and Santiago to the likes of the UNSC Marine ODSTs or the Army Rangers. Which was about as high praise as Kat could give, especially when one took into consideration both those units had nearly half a millennium to refine their craft. And in some cases, more.

Of course, that wasn't to say these Gears were novices to combat. No, it would be clear to anyone who had eyes and a pair of brain cells to rub together that both Fenix and Santigo had been soldiers all their lives, and that they had seen quite a lot of action possibly even before this war of theirs against the Locust had begun. They walked, talked, and carried themselves like combat veterans: always on the lookout for threats, never staying out in the open for longer than what was necessary, and while everything around them was a pile of shit, their weapons and armor, the tools of their survival, were immaculately maintained. All in all, while they weren't Noble Team, they would do for now.

The sound of a rifle getting chambered jarred Kat from her thoughts and despite knowing the source of the noise, she still nevertheless took a glance behind her. Just off to her left, Emile sat on the decapitated head of one of the creatures that had attacked them. Santiago had called them Bloodmounts, though whether that was the scientific name or merely a reporting name used by the Gears, Kat did not know.

At any case, Emile was surrounded by a variety of weapons. At Kat's request, Sergeant Fenix had allowed them to keep some of the weapons they had salvaged from the mountain of dead Locust piled nearby. Given that Kat had no idea how long she and Emile would be stuck on this planet, and given the limited stores for their own weapons, Kat felt it would be prudent to begin using the local arsenal as soon as possible.

Of course, Kat wasn't one to trust her life on a weapon she didn't even know anything about, which is why Emile was currently working his way through them; disassembling them, quickly studying how they worked, before attempting to reassemble them once more. As Kat watched, Emile calmly slipped the slide back onto one of the handguns they had, and racked it a couple of times to make sure it still worked.

"Report, Four," she quietly demanded over their private line. "What have you discovered about those weapons?"

"Nothing that crazy," Emile said as he loaded a magazine into the handgun, what Santiago had referred to as a "MX8 Snub pistol," and placed it on the ground. "Functionally speaking, they're not that much different from what we would have used in the past."

Reaching down, Emile grabbed one of the rifles lying at his feet, the one that had a chainsaw attached to the underside of its forward handguard.

"This here is apparently the COG standard issued rifle, designated the Mark 2 Lancer assault rifle," he began. "Utilizing a conventional rifle layout with the action and magazine in front of the trigger group, it comes with a forty-six centimeter long barrel with a one in ten twist, for an overall length of ninety-two centimeters. Lack of stock is fucked up, but whatever. Uses holographic sights which are powered by some sort of phosphor, probably tritium, so, that's pretty standard. Action is a bit weird for us: uses a roller-delayed blowback action, which we haven't used in our firearms for…shit, three hundred years? Still, I guess it's got its benefits: action is reliable as hell, less moving parts theoretically make it slightly more accurate, and no gas system means it can be a bit lighter. Not that it matters though with this fucking bayonet."

Emile pointed at the chainsaw.

"Yeah, that's a fucking chainsaw," he declared with a laugh. "You wouldn't think shit like this would be possible, so whoever invented this thing must have been a fucking genius. The entire thing is complicated, but fucking compact as hell. Energy output is insane, especially for the size of its engine; must be the fuel they're using because I've never seen anything like it."

He popped open the fuel compartment and dipped a finger inside, extracting a small sample.

"'Cording to them natives, they call this shit 'Imulsion.' Weird thing is, my suit is registering it as a biological component, not a chemical compound but whatever it is, it clearly works," Emile said, and Kat could see how excited he was about this entire situation. "Saw what's-his-face, the Hispanic dude, cut one of them Bloodmounts in half and it took just about all my strength to decapitate this fucker here," he patted the head he was sitting on, "so, you get some idea of how tough they are. 'Course, chainsaw still adds something like six, seven kilos to the overall weight but hey: least it helps with recoil management."

"Overall, not quite what you'd expect a society on the edge of collapsing to build, especially when you consider how expensive blowback action weapons are to manufacture, but then again, all these Lancers are supposed to have been from COG's pre-war stock, just slightly modified, so I guess it makes sense. Problem isn't the rifle though: problem is the ammo."

Racking the charging handle, Emile ejected a single round which he tossed to Kat.

"Round uses a bottleneck cartridge with a eight millimeter bullet diameter," Emile explained. "Similar dimensions to our bullets, only their casing is a bit longer, at sixty-three millimeters. Also, unlike our standard rounds which use a tungsten-carbide penetrator with a cupronickel jacket for better armored penetration, Lancers just use lead, which makes sense: lead is easy to manipulate plus with the soft-point nose, the bullet will destabilize and yaw in flight, which results in greater cavitation in flesh. Better stopping power, which is pretty damn important given what kind of bad guys they're facing. But that's not even the problem. Problem is the propellant."

That caught Kat's attention and curious, she pried the bullet out from its brass casing and carefully poured out the propellant onto the palm of her hand. Immediately she noticed what Emile was talking about.

"There's a lot of impurities here," she noted as she ran her thumb over the dark powder.

Emile nodded.

"Yeah, don't know why. Could be they lost most of their munitions factories at the start of the invasion, could be they no longer have access to the raw material needed to purify their powder. Whatever it is, it makes for a very inefficient bullet as they're not getting nearly the amount of velocity they could be with a cartridge this size. They mentioned something about having overpressure rounds, but I don't think it's overpressure in the way we're used to; more like, it's probably the bullets are actually loaded to the original specifications."

Kat nodded and tossed the bullet away before jerking her head to the other rifle laying on the ground next to Emile. "What about the Locust weapons?"

Emile glanced at the rifle. "Those are more standard: stamped-steel gun that's gas-operated with a rotating bolt, using a long-stroke piston. The piston, plus the lack of stock and the higher caliber bullet they fire means there's going to be more felt recoil. Flipside is, I guess 'cause they use a smaller casing, propellant content is more pure, resulting in higher velocities. Which, as you know, means better accuracy and rounds hit harder."

Kat nodded. "Conclusions?"

"This here is a bullet hose and better for close quarters 'cause of its bayonet," Emile announced, lifting the Lancer.

"This is better for long range shooting," he declared as he lifted the Hammerburst.

Kat considered both rifles before pointing at the second rifle. "Give me the Hammerburst."

She could hear Emile snorting.

"Like I was ever going to give you the Lancer," he admitted. "I wanna try this chainsaw out!"

Beneath her helmet, Kat quietly shook her head. Of course.

Attaching the Hamerburst to her back alongside her other equipment, Kat took a moment to quickly rearrange the magazines in her pouches.

"How long are you expecting us to remain on this planet anyways?" she heard Emile ask as she worked.

"We were required to transmit a status report to the nearest FLEETCOM sector headquarters once every six hours," Kat answered. "With the understanding that would not always be possible due to circumstances outside of our control. Therefore, we are allowed to miss up to three windows before High Command is alerted. We just missed our first window approximately fifty-three minutes ago, which gives us at least another twelve hours before High Command begins to wonder as to our status. Assuming best case scenario where Colonel Holland immediately assumes something has gone wrong and alerts FLEETCOM Sector Seventeen - who in turn will need to have a battle group ready at the moment – to immediately deploy? Given the fluctuations in slipspace, it could take them anywhere between four to seveteen days for them arrive and begin their sweep. Once they arrive, depending on what sort of equipment they brought with them, figure it will take them approximately three days before they zero in on our location."

"So, what you're saying is: best case scenario, we're looking at about a month?" Emile summarized.

"Best case scenario," Kat confirmed. Left unsaid was the worst case scenario, which was them never being recovered at all.

"Good. I could use a vacation," Emile emphatically declared and Kat resisted the urge to laugh. Only Emile would think being stranded on an unknown planet surrounded by hostiles would be a 'vacation.'

Without another word, Kat turned back to her watch over the street, when she noticed Emile was still staring at her. "What."

"Well?"

"Well, what?" she asked, a bit confused.

"Well, are you gonna explain how two different species on two different planets occupying different sectors of the same galactic quadrant somehow managed to evolve in such a way they're practically identical in appearance, speech, and culture?"

"What makes you think I have a clue?" Kat coyly asked, more out of habit than actual maliciousness.

Emile rolled his eyes.

"You're Kat," was all he said. "You couldn't stop thinking about these things, even if you wanted to.

Kat quietly sighed. It was true; she did have a bad habit of allowing these things to distract her, even in moments where she couldn't afford to be.

"I have a theory," she finally said.

"Of course you do," Emile snarkily said, but Kat ignored him.

"Short answer? They didn't."

She could feel Emile staring at her.

"You're gonna have to explain that one to me," he admitted. "'Cause, I don't know about you, but I'm staring at these fuckers now."

He threw a glance in Fenix and Santiago's direction, both of whom were still animatedly talking on the radio. Well, at least Santiago was. Fenix was practically part Spartan given his near lack of reaction to almost everything happening around him.

"Yes, they're here," Kat confirmed. "But I don't think their ancestors originated here."

"What do you mean?"

Kat carefully considered him.

"How much did you pay attention in history when you were training with the rest of Alpha Company?" she finally asked. "I know Rosenda said that was her favorite subject, but what about you?"

"Not a whole lot," Emile freely admitted. "Didn't care much about history; cared more about learning how to fight."

Kat nodded. "Then what do you remember about the invention of the slipspace drive?"

"The Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Drive? Same as everyone else: invented in April of 2291 by Tobias Fleming Shaw and Wallace Fujikawa. Revolutionized space travel. Triggered off what historians have since labeled as 'The Second Golden Age of Travel' that arguably ended with the start of the Insurrection in 2494. UNSC wouldn't have gotten as strong as it did without it."

"Ever wonder how humanity used to travel before that?"

Emile snorted. "No."

"They used to stick all living beings inside cryo chambers," Kat explained. "Kept them in stasis. Then, using the planets inside the Sol System as slingshots, they would build up enough speed before flinging the ships out of the system towards their destination at max burn using sublight engines. It would literally take decades for them to get anywhere and while most ships at the time had automated programs to monitor the systems, that's still a very long time for things to go wrong. Lots of colony ships simply never reached their destination, and just disappeared into the void without a trace."

"And you think these guys are one of them?" Emile summarized. "Why?"

"There are far too many similarities between our people and their people for us to not have a common origin," Kat explain. "Our shared language for one: syntax, pronunciation, even the meanings behind the words they use are practically identical aside from the small deviations one would expect to arise from cultural differences. The technology they use is very clearly derived from machines and equipment that would have been commonplace in the early 2200's, and their military ranks and structure appears to have been derived from the Commonwealth system that many nations would have used up until the formation and standardization of the United Nations Space Command. Furthermore, they even use Imperial units, which would have been far more commonplace, albeit, rapidly falling out of favor, nearly four hundred years ago."

"So, you think these guys are nothing more than some lost colonists from Earth? That makes sense; would explain why they seem to know shockingly little about these Locust they're fighting against." Emile paused. "But you're thinking they left around, what, the early 2200's? Would mean they've been here for damn near three hundred years. You'd think the UNSC would have stumbled across them at some point. Hell, we're not too far from Fumirole; couple dozen light-years. In astrological terms, that's pretty much next door."

"Yes, but consider the reason why the UNSC never came out this way: there were no usable slipstream lanes for us to traverse. **We **were only able to arrive because the _Elise_ had been equipped with the latest model of the slipspace drive; the drive which the UNSC was only able to build by studying Covenant engines. Up until three decades ago, that was obviously not an option."

"What about transmissions? They had to have had satellites for some time; shouldn't we have been able to pick up on their broadcast?"

"You're too used to the way the UNSC communicates," Kat chided. "Only reason our communications are as fast as they are is because of the network of subspace communications buoys we've established over the centuries. Otherwise, it would take nearly a millennium for the signals to arrive. And again, given the vastness of space, we would only be able to receive the signals if we were looking for it. We weren't looking for this planet."

"Makes sense," Emile admitted. "Guess the only left to do is wonder about the political ramifications, huh?"

Kat shot him a curious look. "What do you mean?"

"You're thinking these guys left around the late 2100's to early 2200's, right? Which means they probably would have left the Sol System just after the Interplanetary War. Just after the creation of the UNSC. Which makes them UNSC citizens… which means, we've got an obligation to protect them," Emile pointed out, before pausing. "See? I pay attention."

Kat couldn't help but be mildly impressed. She sometimes forgot that underneath his brutish nature, Emile was still a Spartan, which meant that not only did he have the combat skills and physicality of one, but also the analytical mind to be able to use said talents to its full effectiveness.

That being said, she _had _actually considered not just the political, but also the strategic ramifications, of their discovery. And her conclusion was… less than satisfactory.

"Its possible I am wrong in regards to the date," Kat admitted. "Without concrete evidence, it's impossible to determine when these people's ancestors would have left the Sol System. Perhaps they left before the formation of the UNSC. Perhaps after. But ultimately, it would matter little. As the self-proclaimed 'protectors of humanity,' the UNSC would be obliged to protect this world if the leaders of this COG were to ask. Realistically though, would High Command do so?" Kat hesitated for a moment before admitting, "Probably not."

She could see Emile's head jerk in her direction.

"Really?" Emile asked. "Seems to me this world would be really easy to mop up. These Locust clearly have no space force of any kind or otherwise the COG wouldn't be able to use their 'Hammer of Dawn' weapon. A small cruiser group could probably sit in orbit and in a few hours, sweep this entire planet clean of all Locust forces."

"Yes, but what would the point be?" Kat argued. "The years of war have destroyed this planet, rendering much of their natural resources either expended or unusable. The human societies on this world are also on the verge of collapse; based on everything we've witnessed so far, I estimate at this current rate, humanity on this world _will _be rendered extinct within the decade. The amount of resources that would be required to simply allow this world to exist until the next few decades would exceed that of what we would receive in return."

"What about this Imulsion crap? Almost seems worth looking into."

"We have cold nuclear fusion," Kat reminded him. "Any gains that we could obtain from the study and replication of this Imulsion would be minimal at best. No, it would simply not be worth it. Perhaps a decade ago, High Command would have attempted to save this world, if only for propaganda purposes. However, simply put, we're losing. And we can't afford expending resources on a dying world."

Emile was silent for a moment.

"Well you're going to have to tell _them _that," he finally said, jerking his head in the direction of Fenix and Santiago. "I don't think they realize how good our hearing is, but I can still hear them talking. And one of their arguments as to why this Colonel Hoffman of theirs should trust us so far seems to be the fact that we belong to the UNSC. And that, by helping us, they might be able to secure our help in their war against the Locust."

Kat sighed.

"Our priority, Emile, is the preservation of ourselves and the information we possess," she quietly affirmed. "A task that would be far simpler with the aid of the COG. If guaranteeing our assistance in their war facilitates that aid, then perhaps it is best we do not dissuade them of their belief."

She glanced at Emile with a significant look. Emile nodded.

"I understand," was all he said.

Their conversation was abruptly cut short by the sound of footsteps approaching them. Without even looking up, Kat could tell it was Santiago, just by how he walked.

"Man, you guys are like statues," he commented as he drew near. "I don't think you guys have moved a muscle in the last twenty minutes we've been on the radio. You guys still awake?"

Kat nodded, this time making sure to actually move her head so that Santiago could see it. Obviously as an outsider, Santiago would not have been able to pick up on the subtle Spartan body language she and Emile had been using for the last few minutes.

"What news, Corporal?" Kat politely asked.

"Colonel Hoffman would like to talk to you, ma'am," Santiago said before glancing at Emile. "Both of you."

Kat nodded once more before climbing to her feet. Though silent and emotionless as ever, underneath her helmet, Kat's mind was ablaze with activity. Hopefully, over the course of this conversation, she would be able to convince this Hoffman to aid and assist them during the course of their indefinite stay here, at which point, she and Emile could work to maintain a low profile, at least until High Command finally arrived to extract them.

The last thing she and Emile needed were any more complications.

**XXXXX**

**Nexus, Inner Hollows**

"Tell me once more how they arrived."

The two Drones that laid prostrated in front of her glanced at each other, uncertainty clearly written in their faces. Despite only hesitating for but a moment, it was enough to immediately attract the ire of several standing nearby.

One of the Drones was sent squealing in pain as the High General of the Locust forces, Skorge kicked him.

"SPEAK!" he rasped out. "THE QUEEN MOTHER DEMANDS IT!"

Before further violence could break out, the small figure sitting on the throne abruptly rose to her feet, and all assembled immediately fell silent as Queen Myrrah gracefully walked down the steps. With a mild look of disdain gracing her youthful features, she stalked forward until she was standing over the wounded Drone.

"High General Skorge."

Myrrah's commanding voice echo through the throne room.

"Your enthusiasm for our cause is much appreciated," she began, "however, there is no need for violence. These Drones, like all Locust, are my children. And as children know…"

Myrrah dropped to a crouch and cupped the wounded Drone's chin with her small hand.

"…they must not tell their mother lies," she finished as she lifted the Drones head up so they were facing each other only, the Drone refused to meet her eye, attempting to pull away out of shame.

Myrrah stared at the Drone for a moment, seeing if he would eventually come around, but he never did and abruptly, she jerked his head away and stood up with derision.

"Now," she declared as she returned to her throne. "Tell me again: how did these humans arrive?"

This time, without hesitation, the Drones began to tell their story. And Myrrah listened. Again. For the fifth time. For she had to ensure the information they were telling her was truthful.

As much as Myrrah would have wanted to accept the word of these Drones without question, there was no denying that her children, her beautiful children, were but simple beings. As cunning and efficient as they may have been on the battlefield, they were still but children, prone to fanciful stories and flights of fancy.

As a mother, Myrrah dared not stifle her children's imagination. However, as a queen and savior of her family, she dared not act on mere fantasies. Not while the humans continued to desperately cling to the surface with little regards to their actions. Not while the monsters from below clawed at her very doorstep, stealing and corrupting her people.

And so she listened. Carefully and deliberately, she listened to what they had to say. Their story involved the son of Fenix, as usual - much like his father, this Marcus Fenix was proving himself to be quite the thorn in Myrrah's plans – however, unusually enough, he wasn't the main subject this time. Instead, the focus was on two other humans. Humans that these Drones were claiming to have –

The Drones fell silent as they finished their story, and Myrrah deliberately regarded them. For the fifth time, they had regaled their story and for the fifth time, their story had remained consistent. Myrrah had no choice but to accept their story as true. But how could it be? For these Drones had repeatedly insisted that these… humans… came from –

"'From beyond the stars,'" Myrrah quoted out loud, and the Drones started squirming uncomfortably, but she ignored them. "No humans have ever left this world. How could any come from beyond? What evidence do you have of this feat?"

The Drones shuffled uncomfortably, before one of them reached behind his back. He froze as every single one of Myrrah's royal guards reached for their weapons, but one look from her and they immediately relaxed: no Locust would ever dare even _think _about raising a hand against their mother.

Nevertheless, the reach of those who had been corrupted ran deep, so Myrrah waited until after Skorge had verified the object was not a weapon before taking it.

Much to Myrrah's surprise, the object was nothing more than a lump of melted metal. At first, she couldn't understand why she was being given this… scrap of refuse, but the moment she touched it, she knew.

As the queen of the underworld, Myrrah was intimately familiar with all manner of rocks and minerals that could be found in the earth of this planet, to the point she was able to identify them merely by a single touch. Therefore, it came as an immense surprise when she lifted the small, misshapen piece of metal and felt… nothing. No sense of familiarity, no warmth of recognition. All she felt was the cold, and a sense of the void that was empty as the sky. There was no denying: the material that had been used to forge this object, _was not of this world._

Involuntarily, she left out a gasp as the implications of the truth hit her. If humans had returned from the stars, then it meant they could reach it in the first place. And if _they_ could reach them, so too could the _Locust_. And if the Locust could leave this dying world, leave the corrupted and the sick behind –

"There would no longer be any need for the war…" Myrrah whispered.

"MY QUEEN?"

Myrrah jumped and turned to Skorge, who was staring at her with a concerned look on his scared face. She ignored him, and instead, focused on the Drones in front of her.

"These humans, the ones that came from beyond the stars," Myrrah said, her heart racing. "Where did they go?"

The Drones looked at each other before, through the psychic bond she had with all her children, an image of a dark, noisy aircraft appeared in her mind.

"A Raven," she whispered. "The COG have them. They are going to Jacinto."

At once her eyes narrowed and she turned to Skorge.

"High General!" she barked and Skorge immediately snapped to attention. "Rally the Swarm and begin preparations to march on Jacinto! I want those humans! For if they have indeed come from beyond the stars, then they surely know how to return to them. And they _will_ enlighten us as to how they managed to accomplish this feat."

"And once they do –

"- we can finally rid ourselves of this cursed world!"

**XXXXX**

**Somewhere in Deep Space**

"Play it again."

"But sire! The image hasn't finished rendering yet!" the Unggoy technician began to protest, but one look, and the creature instantly shut up and returned to work.

Behind the Unggoy, Jiralhanae War Chieftain Lepidus let out a low growl. If this pathetic creature continued to defy him in such a blatant manner again, Lepidus didn't care how skilled he was: Lepidus would shove the sniveling worm out the airlock himself. Lepidus needed answers, and if the Unggoy had spent more time working and less time complaining, then perhaps Lepidus would have already gotten the answers he sought.

This disaster had all began when six of Lepidus' Type-27 interceptors had simply disappeared on a training mission three systems away from where Lepidus had, at the orders of the High Prophets, begun to establish a repair yard for warships that had been damaged in the Great Crusade against the humans. Under normal circumstances, the loss of six interceptors was no tragedy as accidents occurred all the time, especially when the pilots had been nothing more than mere pups. However, to lose six of them simultaneously with no warning - not even a single call of distress - was unusual. And Lepidus needed to know why. Especially given the vulnerability of this facility, as well as the cunningness of the humans.

And so, he had commanded one of his ships to investigate. And what they had found only deepened his concern: no traces of the interceptors had remained. No wreckage, no bodies, nothing… save a single, heavily damaged flight recorder.

With the recorder in hand, Lepidus immediately had the Huragoks assigned to his forces begin data recovery. Restoration of the flight recorder had been trivial for the simple creatures; reconstruction of the data that had been _stored _on the recorder was proving to be considerably less so. Which was why Lepidus was standing here, watching fragments of videos, trying to piece together what had happened, all the while the Huragok worked on recovering more files.

"Stop," Lepidus abruptly demanded, and the Unggoy immediately stopped the recording on a single frame. Lepidus leaned in close. He thought he had seen something suspicious, but upon a second glance, it turned out to have been nothing more than his imagination.

He let out a low growl. The lack of answers was beginning to wear on him.

Without warning, the Huragok began whistling in a rather excited manner.

"What's it saying?" Lepidus demanded to know from the Unggoy before the Huragok even had a chance to finish.

The Unggoy gave a fearful squeak and started whistling back to the Huragok while at the same time, he waved his hands around in a wild fashion. Lepidus waited impatiently for the response.

"Shipmaster, Huragok says it able to restore more footage," the Unggoy translated.

"Will it be more footage of the pre-flight or will it _actually_ show me something useful!?" Lepidus demanded to know, staring at the video's he'd been watching over and over again for the last half cycle with distain.

He waited with forced patience as the Unggoy quickly translated the question, before waiting for a response.

"The Buoyant One… I mean, the _Huragok_ say, footage extracted from end of data stream," the Unggoy translated.

"Then show it," Lepidus demanded.

He watched as the Huragok extend a tentacle and press a button. At once, his screen changed.

At first, Lepidus wasn't sure what he was looking at, as all he saw was a bunch of light. As if the recorder had been pointing directly down the muzzle of a Type-25 blood-hand. He was about to snap at the Huragok for wasting his time, when the screen shifted slightly, revealing the edge of space, and Lepidus abruptly realized he was actually staring at a planet. Then he noticed the single blurry black dot in the center of the screen.

"Stop!" he barked and at once, the screen froze. "Magnify on that object in the center."

The dot rapidly expanded to fill the screen, though it was still rather pixilated.

"Enhance."

The image abruptly cleared up, revealing –

A small ship, colored as black as the void itself, its sharp angles and straight edges standing in stark contrast to the more spherical and bulbous designs of Covenant warships. Harsh blue lights dotted the outer hull and although there were no visible weapons on the outer hull, it would be clear to any observer that this ship was designed with one purpose in mind: war.

Lepidus felt a thrill of excitement go down his spine as he stared at the ship in question. Not only could he recognize the ship as a distinctly _human _vessel, he also recognized _what_ that ship was.

And more importantly, what the arrival of the ship _herald._

"What is that planet!?" Lepidus roared, unable to completely mask his excitement.

Out of the corner of his eye, Lepidus could see the Unggoy jump in surprise, before quickly accessing the computer in order to compare the image of the planet to those in the navigation database.

"Sensors indicated planet is second planet in the Utus System, sire!" the Unggoy reported.

Lepidus growled in acknowledgement. The second planet in the Utus System. He recognized that system. When the fleet had first arrived to the sector, his sensors had immediately taken note of the artificial constructs around the second planet within the system that would later be designated as the "Utus System." It had been cause for interest at first, but then sensors had also indicated that the planet was in the midst of a destructive civil war, and as a result, Lepidus had decided to simply leave the planet alone. However, if the humans had been traveling towards that planet, then clearly his decision had been made in error.

"Continue reconstruction of this data," Lepidus snapped. "I want to know everything about that ship! Report to me the moment you have discovered more."

"Yes, sire!" the Unggoy barked out, however at that point, Lepidus was no longer paying attention. Instead, he had reached up to activate his communicator.

"_Bridge."_

"This is the Shipmaster," Lepidus growled and over the communicator, he could hear the speaker on the other end abruptly coming to attention. "Assemble our finest warriors, and prepare to deploy a corvette to the second planet in the Utus System."

"_Of course War Chieftain," _the Jiralhanae on the other side eagerly replied. _"What shall I inform the warriors?"_

"Tell them to bring their guns," Lepidus said simply.

"We're going hunting for Demons."

* * *

And that it, that's all I could come up with. That's not to say I was running out of ideas; most of my other ideas though, I felt would be more appropriate for an actual Gears of War/Halo crossover such as

\- maybe having a scene where Chairman Prescott hears about Kat and Emile, and starts plotting to have them kidnapped and brought to Azura where they could make a spaceship that would save him and the rest of the elite that are hiding out the war on the islands

\- depicting the Locust and the COG Army having one massive battle where the Locust are trying to break through to Jacinto in order to grab the Spartans (sort of a novelization version of a game of Horde)

\- at that point, I was thinking the Covenant would finally show up and just start killing everyone

\- whereupon, the Locust and COG make a temporary alliance to try and halt the Covenant's rampage

\- at which point, due to being weakened by the attack on Jacinto, and then the Covenant invasion, the Locust find themselves unable to truly hold back the Lambent invasion any longer and completely lose control of the Hollows, at which point the Lambent break out onto the surface and start killing everyone, thus forcing an alliance between all three parties on the surface (human, Locust, and Covenant)

\- and then, maybe then, the UNSC finally shows up?

Obviously, none of these ideas have been fully fleshed out, and probably won't for some time as I don't actually plan on turning this into a full-fledged story. (At least, not for now...)

Thanks for reading.


End file.
